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Xajpani inches closer to commercial brewing

By WASIM RAHMAN

JORHAT, Jan 31 - The Assam Agricultural University on Tuesday signed an MoU with Maverick Technologies, a Guwahati-based company, to let the company use the technique evolved by the varsity to produce xajpani (traditional rice beer prepared by indigenous communities in Assam) commercially.

Dr Madhumita Barooah, Professor of the Department of Agricultural Biotechnology of the AAU, told The Assam Tribune that her department and the Department of Biotechnology (under the Central Government), AAU Centre, after a decade of extensive research have developed a technology for commercial production of xajpani with 10 to 12 per cent alcohol along with increased shelf life.

She said that the company will be setting up a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant to produce and popularise xajpani in the State as �Heritage Alcoholic Beverage of Assam� under the recently introduced State Government�s new Excise policy.

Barooah said that Maverick aims to take the brew to the heights of Fenny, a popular cashew-based drink of Goa. The professor said that so far, the main hurdle in commercialising xajpani has been the inability to brew a uniform product and quality due to the lack of a �defined starter culture, optimised techniques and very short shelf-life�.

However, research on the subject by her team has been able to overcome those factors, she said.

Barooah said that like other traditional fermentation process, the xajpani making involves spontaneous fermentation under non-aseptic conditions. The wide and varied microbial flora to which raw materials are exposed, results in variation in the overall quality of fermented product.

Xajpani brewing is an age-old art of technology. Most of the communities prepare it predominantly at a cottage-level. Rice-based traditional alcohol beverages are integral part of traditional belief systems in many Asian countries, the professor said.

She said that various rice-based products, including fermented products, are prepared in Assam and xajpani is one such fermented alcoholic beverage that has been produced by the indigenous communities since time immemorial.

These fermented beverages play an important role in the spiritual and cultural lives of the indigenous communities and are known by different names, Barooah said.

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