Loloh: The Balinese Herbal Drinks You’ve Never Heard Of

The morning light in Payangan is soft, filtering through the gaps in the bamboo slats of the kitchen wall. Mbok Wayan stands at a worn wooden table, her movements economical and precise. She pours three small glasses of liquid from a heavy ceramic pitcher. The first is a deep, opaque orange. The second is a pale, cloudy green. The third is a milky, translucent white. The air in the room is heavy with a complex, layered scent. It is the smell of wet earth, sharp tamarind, and the faint, sweet aroma of bruised pandan leaves. There is no music playing. The only sound is the dull clink of the ceramic against the wood and the distant, rhythmic crowing of a rooster from a neighbouring compound. She pushes the three glasses across the table, waiting for the steam to settle.

A table, three glasses

“To know if a kunyit loloh is good, you must smell it before you see it,” Mbok Wayan says, wiping her hands on a faded cotton sarong. “If the turmeric is fresh, it smells like warm sun and damp soil. If it is old powder from a packet, it smells like nothing. The tamarind must bite the back of your tongue, and the salt must be just enough to make the sweetness of the palm sugar stand up. It is a balance. If it is too sweet, it is just sugar water. If it is too sour, it is a punishment.”

Mbok Wayan has spent thirty years making these drinks in her family kitchen in Payangan, a village tucked into the hills north of Ubud. She does not measure her ingredients by the gram or the millilitre. She measures by the handful, by the pinch, by the exact shade of the water as it steeps over the crushed roots. Her knowledge is entirely tactile, built on decades of repetition, observation, and the quiet correction of her own mistakes.

Her kitchen is a working space, not a showroom for tourists. Heavy stone mortars and wooden pestles sit beside woven bamboo strainers and stacked ceramic bowls. The air is perpetually thick with the scent of bruised leaves and crushed rhizomes. She speaks slowly, choosing her words with the same deliberate care she uses to grind her spices. There is no rush in her movements. The preparation of the drink is as much a part of the healing process as the consumption of it.

What loloh is

Loloh is the Balinese term for a family of traditional herbal medicinal drinks, usually served cold in small glasses. The Indonesian term for similar preparations is jamu. The practices overlap, but they are not identical. Loloh predates Dutch colonial pharmacy in Bali by centuries. References to these specific medicinal plant preparations exist in lontar, the ancient palm leaf manuscripts of the island. These texts detail the harvesting times, the preparation methods, and the intended physiological effects of various root and leaf combinations. The manuscripts treat the body as an ecosystem, requiring specific botanical inputs to maintain balance against the external environment.

It is a domestic practice, passed down through generations of women. It is designed to maintain the body’s equilibrium rather than to cure a specific disease after it has already taken hold. The philosophy behind loloh is preventative. It assumes that the body requires regular, gentle adjustments to counteract the effects of heat, humidity, stress, and dietary shifts. It is not a miracle cure. It is a daily maintenance ritual, as ordinary and necessary as sweeping the courtyard or washing the rice.

Kunyit Celagi

The most common variety is kunyit celagi. It is a blend of fresh turmeric and tamarind, sweetened with palm sugar and finished with a pinch of salt. The colour is a deep, vibrant orange, staining the fingers of anyone who prepares it. The taste is sharp, sour, and sweet, hitting different parts of the palate in rapid succession. It is traditionally taken for digestion, for minor skin conditions, and for general vitality.

“When my children were small and their stomachs were upset, my mother would make kunyit celagi,” Mbok Wayan explains, her eyes fixed on the middle distance. “She would grate the fresh turmeric root herself. We did not have blenders in those days. She would boil it with the tamarind pulp, strain it through a clean cloth, and add the sugar and salt while it was still warm. We drank it before bed. By morning, the heat in the belly was gone, and they could eat their rice.”

The preparation requires patience. The turmeric must be grated finely to release its active compounds. The tamarind must be soaked and mashed to extract its sour pulp. The mixture is then simmered gently, allowing the flavours to meld before it is strained and chilled. The salt is the crucial element. Without it, the drink is cloying. With it, the sweetness is grounded, and the sourness is sharpened.

Daun Kembang Rampe

The second variety is daun kembang rampe. This is a herbal blend built around pandan, screwpine, and a selection of other aromatic local leaves. It is significantly lighter in colour and in taste than kunyit celagi. The liquid is a pale, translucent green, and the flavour is floral, herbaceous, and mildly astringent. It is taken to support circulation and to cool the body during the hottest months of the year.

The preparation of daun kembang rampe relies on bruising rather than boiling. The leaves are gently crushed to release their essential oils, then steeped in cool or lukewarm water. Some families make it with local honey instead of palm sugar. The honey alters the viscosity of the drink and provides a smoother, more lingering finish on the palate. The taste requires a certain acquired appreciation. It is not immediately sweet. The initial flavour is grassy and slightly bitter, followed by the cooling sensation of the pandan. It is a drink meant to be sipped slowly, allowing the aromatic compounds to settle in the chest.

Bas Cekuh

The third variety is bas cekuh. This is a robust blend of galangal and kencur, a related rhizome sometimes called aromatic ginger, mixed with a hint of black pepper and other warming spices. It is strong, earthy, and deeply warming. It is taken for fatigue, for recovery after a prolonged illness, and sometimes after childbirth to restore internal heat to the body.

The taste is fiercely peppery and pungent. It leaves a lingering, pleasant heat in the back of the throat. The kencur provides a distinct, camphor-like aroma that is instantly recognisable to anyone raised in Bali. The galangal adds a sharp, piney bite. This is not a drink for casual refreshment. It is a functional preparation, consumed for a specific physiological purpose. The heat it generates is intended to stimulate blood flow and ease muscular stiffness.

Not everyone likes all three varieties on first taste. The flavours are challenging. They are sharp, sweet, bitter, and pungent, often within the same mouthful. Most Balinese families have a preferred loloh and a seasonal rotation based on the weather and the specific needs of the household. A drink that is comforting in the rainy season might be entirely unpalatable during the dry heat of August.

The makers

The people who make loloh today are almost always women. They are almost always older. This is unpaid labour inside the household economy, invisible to the broader market and rarely acknowledged as a specialised skill. The knowledge is transferred from mother to daughter through observation and correction, a slow process that requires the younger generation to be present in the kitchen. As economic pressures force younger generations into formal employment in tourism or urban centres, the domestic space where this knowledge is transmitted is emptying out.

“My daughters work in offices in Denpasar,” Mbok Wayan says, looking out the kitchen window towards the rice fields. “They buy drinks in plastic bottles from the supermarket. They do not have the time to grate turmeric or pound galangal. I try to teach my granddaughter, but she prefers her phone. When I am gone, this kitchen will be quiet.”

The tradition is at genuine risk of being lost. Fewer young Balinese women learn the precise ratios and the tactile knowledge required to make it well. The commercial versions in bottles are widespread. They are often over sweetened and stripped of the complex, challenging flavours that define the authentic drink. The hand made version is slower and less consistent. That variability is exactly what makes it good. It is a reflection of the specific harvest, the specific hands that prepared it, and the specific needs of the family on that particular day. A machine cannot replicate the intuition of a woman who knows exactly how much salt a particular batch of tamarind requires.

Where a visitor can actually try it

Most travellers will never encounter a genuine, hand made loloh unless they are invited into a Balinese home. The Urban Retreat offers a loloh tasting by request, with the three varieties served in small glasses, as a way for visitors to try a practice they would otherwise never encounter.