Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Soft drinks from Northern India and Pakistan

Kanji (black carrot)

Grated purple-black carrots are steeped in salted water with crushed mustard seed and chilli, and left in a nearly sealed earthenware pot for several days. Lactic bacteria sour the liquid (to pH 3.47 in one study) and it turns purple-red; it is strained and drunk within a few days.

Fully documentedSoft drinks5 days – 10 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceFAO recipe for one batch; each kilogram of carrot yields just over 7 litres of kanji.
Finely grated purple carrot1 kg[fao134]
Water7 L[fao134]
Salt200 g[fao134]
Crushed mustard seed40 g[fao134]
Hot chilli powder8 g[fao134]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 5 days – 10 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Purple carrots are washed and finely grated

Step 1 of 4
Wash and grate the carrots
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: grated carrot.

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

Grated purple-black carrots are steeped in salted water with crushed mustard seed and chilli, and left in a nearly sealed earthenware pot for several days. Lactic bacteria sour the liquid (to pH 3.47 in one study) and it turns purple-red; it is strained and drunk within a few days. Made in 4 steps over 5 days – 10 days. The longest step, ferment in a nearly sealed earthenware pot, takes 5–10 days (Battcock M 1998). Pediococcus acidilactici and Lactobacillus paraplantarum and L. pentosus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step5–10 daysReported[fao134][sharma2021]Ferment in a nearly sealed earthenware pot
AciditypH 6 → 3.47Measured[sharma2021]Ferment in a nearly sealed earthenware pot

What makes this one different

Kanji is a vegetable brine drunk as a beverage, not a pickle. Crushed mustard seed goes into the brine, and the anthocyanins of black carrot give its colour.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Beetroot kanjiMade from beetroot instead of carrot (Kingston et al. 2010 studied beetroot kanji and carrot kanji).

Safety

FAO notes that the lactic acid lowers the pH enough to stop food-poisoning organisms, and that the drink spoils 3 or 4 days after straining. In one study the pH fell from 6 to 3.47, and coliform and yeast counts fell during fermentation. FAO's recipe ferments the drink in glazed earthenware. FDA warns that lead in badly made glazes can leach into food and drink. It advises testing the pot with a lead kit, and considering not using it if you cannot test it or tell that it comes from a reliable maker.

Hazards the sources name: Coliforms (counts fell after fermentation).

History and sources

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

FAO describes kanji as a traditional drink of northern India and Pakistan, valued as cooling and soothing.

  1. [fao134] Battcock M., Azam-Ali S. 1998, Fermented fruits and vegetables, a global perspective, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 134, section 6.3.5 Kanjigov
  2. [fda-pottery] US Food and Drug Administration, Questions and Answers on Lead-Glazed Traditional Potterygov
  3. [sharma2021] Sharma C., Sahota P.P., Kaur S. 2021, Physicochemical and microbiological evaluation of antioxidant-rich traditional black carrot beverage, Kanji, Bulletin of the National Research Centre 45:143paper
  4. [kingston2010] Kingston J.J. et al. 2010, Molecular characterization of lactic acid bacteria recovered from natural fermentation of beet root and carrot Kanji, Indian Journal of Microbiology 50(3):292–298 (abstract)paper
  5. [afreen2023] Afreen A., Ahmed Z., Khalid N. 2023, Exopolysaccharides from Levilactobacillus brevis NCCP 963 isolated from "kanji", RSC Advances 13(29):19725–19737 (abstract)paper