When I think of sugarcane juice, the first thing which comes to mind are the busy by-lanes of Karol Bagh, Delhi: vendors offering poor imitations of Gucci handbags and Rolex watches, women sprinting through the crowd trying to get from one shop to another, the faint smell of hot pooris and Punjabi chana, the constant high-pitched rings of rikshaw bells and a few dozen sugarcane juice (ganne ka ras) carts parked at every street corner.
In the sweltering heat, I’d jostle my way to the sugarcane juice guy and watch him lazily operate an old-world juice machine that takes in one sugarcane at a time and pushes out beautiful green coloured cane juice that is sweet and delicious.
Benefits of sugarcane juice are aplenty and it is also considered extremely nourishing and considered to be a real goldmine of health according to doctors, nutritionists and the school of Indian traditional medicine.
India is one of the world’s largest producers of sugarcane, after Brazil which is possibly why you’ll find almost no companies which offer packaged sugarcane juice. It can be priced as low as Rs.10 or as high as Rs.40, but it’s available through the country and not limited to one specific region. The top 5 sugarcane producing states are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
