If Jharkhand were to be allowed to have a “state” or an official drink, it would have to be hadia.

The ubiquitous brew has not acquired the packaging and marketing savvy of Goa’s famed feni, brewed from fermented cashew nuts. Also, like feni, hadia is consumed by the less privileged. After all, all it takes to brew hadia is a concoction of rice and herbs.

There are several songs in tribal dialects extolling the virtues of the drink. One of them says that it is only the fortunate who have hadia and large-hearted in-laws. If only an enterprising market-savvy chemist found a way to preserve and promote the drink, it could be at least sold as souvenir!

The brew, generally stored in earthen pitchers, is cool and is best served chilled. Like beer, hadia, too, goes down well with snacks — the tangier, the better. The poor, of course, cannot afford snacks, while the luckier ones love to have it with mutton or chicken.

The brew is also sacred to the tribals and is used extensively in religious rituals and festivals. Auspicious occasions like births and weddings are seldom complete without the brew. In some cases, hadia is consumed as part of the funeral ceremony as well.

Revellers go berserk after consuming hadia during festivals. Most tribal households would brew hadia and serve it to their guests. Hadia, which is touted as a health drink by some, is not as strong as mahua or feni, and is credited to keep the stomach cool and cleanse the digestive system. But that is only if taken in moderation. But most, especially the poor, take to hadia with abandon.

Hadia is fermented with the help of 21 herbs, including kunda, jurbi, patal kohra, siti dor, bhuikund and satauri. The mixture of 21 herbs is known as ranu. It is crushed in a traditional grinder, mixed with crushed rice and water and rolled into tablets weighing 5 to 10 gms each. The tablets are placed on a piece of cloth spread over a hay-stack. It takes at least a week for the rice to ferment and to convert into ethlyalcohol. The rice is first boiled and then mixed with the herbal tablet and left to ferment.

The tablets are preserved in a bamboo basket and kept in a secure place. The tablets are said to undergo chemical reactions, the duration depending on the type of hadia to be made, says singer Mukund Nayak. If the brew is to be on the sweeter side, the duration is shorter. But if it is to be bitter, the duration for which the tablets are retained in the basket are longer.

After a week, the water is stained from the rice base. The distilled water is called hadia. The water on the top layer is called munu and the remaining water is called sitha. The munu is considered good for patients suffering from jaundice.

The zing in hadia depends, to a large extent, on the quality of rice that is used. One of the best varieties of rice is said to be the karaini. Cheaper and coarser varieties are used by the poor. According to Nayak, hadia can be made of mahua as well as wheat — though rice remains the most popular medium.

In tribal households, a little rice is always preserved to brew hadia. Just before the harvest, it is offered to goddess Earth by elderly women who light a fire at a tri-junction and offer the drink to ward off evil and to ensure the well-being of the people. Earth is sacred to the tribals because it is recognised that earth provides people their daily bread, minerals, water, air, sun and light. If Earth is precious, hadia is dear.

Hadia protects people from Loo. Kshitij Kumar Roy of Chhotanagpur Kala Sangam claims that hadia also helps people to do hard labour.

Despite the therapeutic value of the drink and its sacred nature, addiction to hadia has caused a lot of concern. Typically, it is consumed heavily by the poor who find it a cheap source of calories but soon enough become addicted to it. Priced at Rs 2 to Rs 5 a glass, it is affordable for most rickshawpullers and daily wage labourers.

The ready market has also spawned a flourishing trade in the brew, with tribal women vending the drink at roadsides, a common sight now even in the state capital. An investment of Rs 65 on making hadia fetch them a return of Rs 25 to Rs 30 — offering them enough incentive to remain in the business.

Many addicts have suffered from poor health and have become physical and mental wrecks. Several families have been ruined because of senseless violence.

Vendors, in their hurry to make money, have made it worse by fermenting rice faster — in a day — with the help of harmful chemicals, rather than allow the rice to ferment, naturally, for a week. These harmful chemicals, sulphate and even dhatura, have proved fatal for hadia revellers.