← Back to globe
Toddy Tapper's Craft · Coconut Palm Sap

Raa

🌴
Photo coming soon

It's harvested by climbers who tap the same coconut flower bud twice a day, and the same sap can be drunk sweet and fresh or left to turn tangy and lightly fermented.

Raa is the sap of the coconut palm, collected by toddy tappers who cut the flower bud and hang a coconut-shell pot overnight to catch the drip. Drunk fresh it's a sweet, nectar-like refresher; left to sit, it naturally ferments into a mildly alcoholic drink, and it's also boiled down into a treacly syrup called dhiyaa hakuru.

Why it's made this way: Toddy tapping, or raa verikan, has been passed from father to son for generations in the Maldives, making raa one of the islands' oldest living food traditions.
Read it in context →

More from Maldives

Gulha 🥟 Bajiya Mas Huni Fihunu Mas
Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.