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Alcoholic drinks from Assam

Jou (Bodo rice beer)

Jou is the rice beer of the Bodo people of Assam. Cooked rice is mixed with crumbled amao, a starter cake of rice and herbs, with a few chillies and a piece of charcoal, and ferments in an earthen pot for a few days until a sweet-smelling froth appears. It is thinned with water and filtered; one sample measured pH 4.1 and 5.55 % alcohol.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks8.8 days – 16 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHousehold recipe; the sources give only the starter rate and the chilli count.
Cooked rice, air-dried[khapudang2018]
Amao starter1 cake per 1 kg of rice[khapudang2018]
Chilli3–4 piecesAdded with a piece of charcoal[khapudang2018]
WaterA little at the start; more to dilute before filtering[nath2019][khapudang2018]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter (amao or emao). Customarily 3–5 herbs go into the starter cakes.

Total time across the recorded steps: 8.8 days – 16 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countSaccharomyces cerevisiaeRhizopusMoulds

What changes: Rice-and-herb cakes dusted with old starter grow a white coat

Step 1 of 5
Make the amao starter cakes
Time
5–7 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Rhizopus
Moulds
Saccharomyces

Non-sticky rice powder and herbs are dusted with powdered old amao; the cakes turn white as microbes grow. Output: dry amao cakes.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Jou is the rice beer of the Bodo people of Assam. Cooked rice is mixed with crumbled amao, a starter cake of rice and herbs, with a few chillies and a piece of charcoal, and ferments in an earthen pot for a few days until a sweet-smelling froth appears. It is thinned with water and filtered; one sample measured pH 4.1 and 5.55 % alcohol. Made in 5 steps over 8.8 days – 16 days. The longest step, ferment in an earthen pot, takes 3.8–9 days (Das R 2026). Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Rhizopus delemar do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3.8–9 daysReported[das2026]Ferment in an earthen pot
AciditypH 4.1Measured[das2026]Ferment in an earthen pot

What makes this one different

Jou is fermented with chillies and a piece of charcoal in the pot, and its amao starter is made from non-sticky rice powder with customarily 3–5 herbs.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Jou gwranListed as a distilled drink of the Bodo (Bhattacharya and Deka 2023, a review table).

Safety

One jou sample measured pH 4.1 ± 0.2 and 5.55 ± 0.18 % v/v alcohol (Das et al. 2026).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Narzary et al. 2021 call brewing rice beer with emao an age-old tradition of the Bodo (Boro), one of the earliest settlers of North-East India. They say the Bodo, Dimasa and Garo might have emerged from a common ancestor about 1500 years ago.

  1. [nath2019] Nath N., Ghosh S., Rahaman L., Kaipeng D.L., Sharma B.K. 2019, An overview of traditional rice beer of North-east India: ethnic preparation, challenges and prospects, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 18(4):744–757paper
  2. [bd2023] Bhattacharya B., Deka D.C. 2023, Biochemical indices and consumption pattern of traditional alcoholic beverages by tribal communities of North-East India, a review, Current Research in Nutrition and Food Science 11(2):470–487paper
  3. [khapudang2018] Khapudang R., Sharma S., Joshi V.K. 2018, Indigenous fermented food products of Eastern and Western Himalayan region, a review, Intl. J. Food Ferment. Technol. 8(2):119–139paper
  4. [das2026] Das R., Medhi M.C., Tamang B. 2026, Microbial diversity and its links to retinol pathways and aroma compounds in ethnic fermented rice beverages of Assam, AMB Express 16:91paper
  5. [narzary2021] Narzary D. et al. 2021, Community structure and metabolic potentials of the traditional rice beer starter 'emao', Scientific Reports 11:14628paper