KOTA BHARU: ‘Nira Kurma’ – juice or sap extracted from date palm trees has taken residents in Kampung Teras, Binjai near here, by storm when experiments carried out by local villager Mohd Zain Mohamed produced nutritious and delicious drink.
Mohd Zain, 59, has been experimenting on extracting juice or sap from the date palm trees he cultivated in the village for the past two years and now customers from near and far have been frequenting his stall to get supply of the unique drink.
“Many customers told me that ‘nira kurma’ tastes more delicious that the ‘nira kelapa’ (extracted from coconut flower bud) and ‘nira nipah’ while they claimed that it has nutritional properties to cure various diseases, especially high blood pressure and diabetes.
Mohd Zain said he did not expect the date palm trees he cultivated would yield delicious and nutritious juice compared to coconut and ‘nipah’ trees.
“Initially I planted 50 (pokok kurma) date palm trees as a hobby and also for sale in Kampung Teras.
“Then one of my workers from Bangladesh told me that the plant could also produce sap and that’s when I started to experiment with the methods and stuff,” he said.
He said the process of producing the juice was somewhat different from coconut version due to its large size trunk that he needed to tap the trunk to induce sap flow compared to coconut where the sap was collected from the flower bud.
“In one day, a tree can produce up to two litres of juice and sometimes the amount could be a lot more depending on the weather and up to 40 litres could be collected at harvest time.
The 250ml of ‘nira kurma’ was sold at RM20, a bit pricey compared to RM5 for sap from coconut and ‘nipah’ palm due to its relatively complicated process and limited production, he said, adding that thus far he planted 200 trees in the village.
One of his customers, Chia Chee Lin, 43, said the ‘nira kurma’ produced was very tasty and he did not mind paying a bit more to get it. – Bernama
