The traditional Balinese herbal drink
When your throat gets irritated, feels itchy, it can hurt so much that you will have hard times to swallow food and you might even lose your voice. Instead of turning to pharmaceutical drugs, why not making your own remedy at home? Try this Balinese traditional herbal drink, loloh.
Loloh is a concoction of specific plants extracts and other ingredients. This is similar to jamu, healthy herbal drink commonly produced and consumed in Indonesia. It works magic to energize and freshen your body, also preventing and treating health ailments (such as throat sore, cough, diarrhea, fever, digestive problems, et cetera).
Depending on the herbs used, some loloh taste bitter, sweet, or sour, some have mixed flavors. If you try it for the first time, you might find the unique taste quite strong, but that will surely make you feel refreshed. Some plants used in loloh include turmeric, ginger, betel, key lime, and cinnamon leaves. Balinese also add other ingredients like honey, coconut milk, brown sugar, tamarind fruit, and even chili! The most popular loloh is loloh cemcem from Bangli, Bali, with cemcem leaves (Spondias sp) as the main ingredients.
Its herbal quality, easy preparation, various benefits, and remarkable effectiveness are what makes loloh the best choice of Balinese homemade remedies. This loloh recipe will help you get rid of the pain in your throat. Here are some health benefits of the ingredients:
Dried chrysanthemum flowers
Aside from their beauty for home decoration and wedding bouquet, chrysanthemum flowers have been used in medicine for centuries. Act as natural coolant, they help cooling stress, relieving throat sore, headache, and influenza, as well as liver-cleansing. The flower’s famous product is chrysanthemum tea, a sweet tea brewed form dried chrysanthemum flowers.
Cogon grass roots
Sweet, cooling, and refreshing. Cogon grass, also known as blady grass, are as well natural coolant. With benefits mainly from the fibrous roots, this plant is made into drink by boiling it with water.
Dried jujube fruits
Jujube fruits smell sweet and aromatic, leaving similar taste to apple. The small, round, red fruits help easing throat sore, enhancing metabolism, and reducing fever. Like chrysanthemum flowers, these antioxidant fruits are popular for their tea product that has soothing and relaxing effect.
Sambiloto leaves
Andrographis paniculata, known as sambiloto in Indonesian, is the King of Bitters. The bitter leaves contain antibiotic, and are one of the most frequently used components in Indonesian herbal medicine, particularly to treat flu and diabetes.
Clockwise from left: cogon grass roots, dried jujube fruits, dried chrysanthemum flowers, sambiloto leaves, sugar.
Ingredients of loloh:
5 dried chrysanthemum flowers
20 gr cogon grass roots
3 sambiloto leaves
3 dried jujube fruits
10 gr sugar
500 ml water
How to make Balinese loloh:
Prepare all ingredients and boil them in 500 ml of drinking water for 10 minutes. You will have one glass of loloh (200 ml) from this recipe. Drink immediately while it’s hot to gargle germs and to relieve the pain. If the brewed taste of samiloto leaves taste too bitter for you, simply add some lime and honey for more flavors (plus, they are good antibacterial to loose mucus).
Enjoy the healthy drink!
/// Written by Olwin Aldila, Indonesia
