Learn · Food as healthcare
Homemade Indian drinks, decoded
Long before bottled sports drinks and sodas, India had a drink for every season and need: cooling in summer, warming in winter, settling after a heavy meal. Here is what each one is actually good for, and where to watch the sugar.
The short answer
Most of these drinks are genuinely useful. The salt-sugar-lime ones (nimbu pani, aam panna) are essentially homemade rehydration for hot weather; the spiced ones (jaljeera) aid digestion; the fermented ones (kanji) are real probiotics; and buttermilk does both. The honest caveat: sweet sherbets and thandai can carry a lot of sugar. Made at home, you control that, which is the whole advantage.
A drink in India is rarely just refreshment. It is timed to the season and the body: something to replace what heat takes out, to wake a tired appetite, to warm a cold chest. Grouping them by what they do is the clearest way to understand them.
Summer coolers, and real rehydration
India's hot-season drinks are, in effect, folk electrolyte drinks. Salt and a little sugar with water and lime is close to what science now calls oral rehydration, the fastest way to replace fluid and minerals lost to sweat.
Aam panna raw mango
Green mango, cumin and black salt. Rehydrating, with vitamin C, and traditionally taken to prevent heat exhaustion. Rehydration: Strong.
Nimbu pani / shikanji lime water
Lime, salt, a little sugar and water. Essentially a homemade oral-rehydration drink, and vitamin C. Strong.
Sattu sherbet roasted gram
Roasted gram flour whisked into water, sweet or salty. Protein and fibre, and slow, cooling energy, a genuine folk protein drink. Strong.
Chaas buttermilk
Light, cooling, probiotic and hydrating. The all-rounder. In the dairy toolkit.
Rose & kewda sherbet floral
Aromatic, cooling and lovely, but sugar-forward. A treat to enjoy in moderation. Mind the sugar.
Sabja & bel basil seed, wood apple
Soaked basil seeds add gel and fibre; bel sherbet is a traditional summer and gut cooler. Emerging.
After the meal: the digestives
A cluster of drinks exist to settle a full stomach, built around the spices Indian tradition has long trusted for digestion, cumin, mint, ajwain and sour tamarind or kokum.
Jaljeera cumin cooler
Roasted cumin, mint, black salt and tamarind in water. Tangy, appetite-whetting and digestive. Digestive: Emerging.
Jeera / ajwain water seed waters
Cumin or ajwain simmered in water; the everyday home remedy for a heavy or gassy stomach. Emerging.
Kokum sherbet coastal souring fruit
Tart, deep-pink and cooling; considered good for digestion in coastal India. Emerging.
Saunf sharbat fennel
Fennel steeped and sweetened; the classic sweet, cooling after-meal drink. Emerging.
Winter warmers and the probiotic one
When it turns cold, the drinks turn warming and spiced; and one, kanji, is a genuine fermented probiotic, worth calling out on its own.
Kadha spiced decoction
Ginger, tulsi, pepper and clove simmered down; the go-to home brew for a cold. Soothing; specifics Emerging.
Haldi doodh golden milk
Warm turmeric milk with fat and a pinch of pepper for absorption. The recipe.
Masala chai spiced tea
Ginger, cardamom and pepper in tea; warming and aromatic. Watch added sugar.
Kanji fermented
Black carrots or rice water fermented in the sun; tart, and a real live-culture probiotic drink. Probiotic: genuine. Why it matters.
Make it at home
Aam panna
Boil or roast a green mango, scoop the pulp, blend with water, roasted cumin, black salt, mint and a little sugar. Serve cold. Full recipe →
Jaljeera
Whisk roasted cumin, black salt, tamarind or amchur, mint and a squeeze of lime into cold water. Sharp, savoury, digestive. Full recipe →
Nimbu pani
Juice of one lime, a pinch of salt, a little sugar and a big glass of water. Add roasted cumin for a shikanji.
Kanji
Black carrot batons, water, salt and mustard powder in a jar; leave in the sun 3 to 5 days until tart and fizzy. A live ferment.
In one minute
- Nimbu pani and aam panna are homemade rehydration, genuinely good in heat.
- Jaljeera and jeera water aid digestion; kanji and chaas bring live cultures.
- Sweet sherbets and thandai are treats, sugar-forward. Making them at home lets you dial it down.
Sources
- Binder HJ, et al. Oral rehydration therapy in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Curr Gastroenterol Rep. 2014;16(3):376. (the salt-sugar-water principle)
- Marco ML, et al. Health benefits of fermented foods: microbiota and beyond. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2017;44:94–102. (kanji, chaas)
- World Health Organization. Oral rehydration salts: production of the new ORS. WHO; 2006.