RAJSHAHI, Nov 24: With the winter approaching, the Gachhis - men engaged in trimming branches of date trees and extracting juice - have become active in the district including at Bagha and Charghat upazilas.
For thousands of years, date juice and sweet, aromatic date-juice cake made by boiling the juice is being practiced by a section of people in the district.
Specially, date juice-cake made in Bagha and Charghat upazilas are superior in quality and are delicious in taste and flavour. As a result, hundreds of tonnes of date-juice made cake used to be produced and sold to various places of the country from Bagha and Charghat every year.
Date juice extraction and making of date juice-cake - gur or molasses - has turned a profitable business in Bagha, and Charghat upazilas of Rajshahi district due to its high market price.
People engaged in extracting date juice are now busy trimming date trees and collecting date juice from there.
The molasses made from the date juice has a good demand across the country, During the winter season it a tradition for rural people to make different kinds of cakes and pithas with date juice.
Elsewhere in Bagha and Chargaht upazila, it is a common scene to watch vans laden with earthen pots full of date molasses heading for different markets of the district everyday for sale.
Besides, trucks loaded with date gur are sent to Dhaka, Chittagong and other districts of the country to meet the demand. A huge amount of date juice made gur are seen to sold at Baneswar hat and at Bagha bazaar every day.
Now, the winter being on its set up, the gacchi are busy in trimming branches of the date trees to collect juice from there.
Within a week or so, the date juice will be available for consumption and the starting of date juice molasses or gur will start from the middle of December.
It is learnt, a farmer having 10 date trees can earn Taka 400 to 500 a day in the district by selling date juice and molasses daily.
One jar of date juice is sold at Taka 50 to Taka 60 while one kilogram of molasses is sold at Taka 120 to Taka 150.
Hasnat (45), a date juice extractor at Maria village under Charghat upazila informed, he has been extracting date juice from trees of the village and adjacent villages for last twenty years. His father was also a date juice extractor of the village.
He said, due to demand of date trees for burning at the brick kilns, a large number of trees has been felled. As a result, the number of date trees at the upazila was dwindling.
He further said, date juice made molasses made from trees of Charghat and Bagha is incomparable in case of taste, flavour and aroma.
Due to superior fragrance and taste, there is a tremendous demand of date juice made cake of the upazilas throughout the country. The country could earn a huge forex by exporting it abroad, he opined.
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