Hot fermented millet beer sipped through a bamboo straw from a wooden vessel. It is a Limbu and Rai drink of eastern Nepal, and the vessel and the straw are as much the thing as the beer.
Producing alcohol at home is licensed or restricted in most of the atlas’s readership, and the ferment depends on a murcha starter cake carrying a specific local set of moulds and yeasts.
What goes into it
- finger millet
- murcha — a starter cake of moulds and yeasts
- hot water
How it is made
Millet is boiled, cooled and mixed with a crushed murcha starter cake, then packed into a container and left to ferment for a week to several months. To serve, a measure of the fermented grain is put into a wooden tongba vessel, hot water poured over it, and the liquid drunk through a bamboo straw with a pierced end that filters the grain. The vessel is refilled with hot water several times.
How long it takes: a week to several months of fermenting the grain
How it is eaten
Hot, through a bamboo straw, refilled with hot water until the grain gives no more.
History
Hot water poured over fermented millet in a wooden vessel and drunk through a bamboo straw; a Limbu and Rai drink of eastern Nepal.
Frequently asked questions
What is Tongba?
Tongba is a wine & spirit from Nepal: hot fermented millet beer sipped through a bamboo straw. Hot water poured over fermented millet in a wooden vessel and drunk through a bamboo straw; a Limbu and Rai drink of eastern Nepal.
How is Tongba made?
Millet is boiled, cooled and mixed with a crushed murcha starter cake, then packed into a container and left to ferment for a week to several months. To serve, a measure of the fermented grain is put into a wooden tongba vessel, hot water poured over it, and the liquid drunk through a bamboo straw with a pierced end that filters the grain. The vessel is refilled with hot water several times. It takes a week to several months of fermenting the grain.
Can I make Tongba at home?
No, and the atlas gives no method for it. Producing alcohol at home is licensed or restricted in most of the atlas’s readership, and the ferment depends on a murcha starter cake carrying a specific local set of moulds and yeasts.
What goes into Tongba?
Finger millet, murcha — a starter cake of moulds and yeasts, hot water.
How is Tongba eaten?
Hot, through a bamboo straw, refilled with hot water until the grain gives no more.
