HAVE YOU EVER TASTE TUBA?
Don't you know that some wine was made from Coconut? How?
[Palm juice with color and no color]
Sources: Wikipedia, Food And Road, CookingBites Cooking Forum, Trip The Islands
This time you will know that Coconut Wine (tuba or bahalina in Visayan term) is the most prevalent type of beverage in most remote area in the Philippines. Many of our ancestors usually bring together sharing wisdoms, funs, experiences, jokes, and prides but the very interesting part is that Coconut Wine's presence is a must. It is a sort of their stress reliever and a remedy of their exhaustion after cultivating their farms or after their works. A zip of tuba is a very satisfying part of them where the sweet and sour taste of it penetrates their gullets.
[Trimmed coconut sap]
Sources: Tamil Crew, The Coconut Company, Sokfarm
Coconut Wine is made from the sap of the coconut tree. The sweet drop of it makes a liter daily with a proper care by mananangot, a person who maintains the coconut tree. Early in the morning, the mananangot should start his trimming on the coconut sap in order to maintain its juice. It must be trimmed every morning and afternoon. He should collect the juice in the morning and strain them using the net of the coconut. After strained, you can see honey-bees on the net zipping the juice. Straining of it helps to cleanse the juice from sediment and bees. They used a two-feet long cut of bamboo and it will serve as their storage, its purpose is to maintain the taste of it. The other cut of bamboo must be placed on the sap and to collects the juice drop. After the process, tuba is ready to serve!
The taste of fresh juice in the morning taste like a honey but if it stored after few hours it becomes sour (bahalina) and elders prefer to drink it. The duration of storing the juice makes the wine sourer. And after few days, the wine could become vinegar. Some people make coconut wine just for vinegar and some made it for drinks. Vinegar out of coconut makes a lot of purpose, it can be a recipe for your dish, a very good partner for your paksiw na bangus and can be a linement for your body pains as well.
[cooking dishes using palm vinegar]
Sources: Yummy.ph, Serious Eats, Yummy Coconut, Skinny Recipes
Above all, this process is not that easy. The mananangot made a lot of sacrifices somehow. They are climbing that coconut tree everyday, morning and afternoon. They are not afraid how tall the tree is, they only think they can may some profit of it. Good or bad weather they never absent just to maintain them. They are not counting how many trees they have to climb a day, the very important thing is they can be beneficial out of it.
[Manananggot's process of collecting the juice]
Source: Tripadvisor, Inspiring Vacations, Two Thousand Isles
I am sharing these stuff because I witnessed this kind of livelihood. And a very overwhelming kind of work that everyone should aware of. Back in the day when I'm in high school, my father use this as our source of income, although it is very dangerous kind of work but proudly it send me to school until I took my bachelor's degree now. It's a sort of my pride also that I am proud of because of my parents sacrifices.
Terminologies
tuba - a visayan term for coconot wine
manananggot - a person who maintains the coconut tree to have its juice
bahalina - a visayan term or the term referring to a wine specially store for a long time.