A vendor in Old Delhi mixes a pink beverage of Rooh Afza diluted with milk.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

conceal caption

toggle caption

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

A vendor in Old Delhi mixes a pink beverage of Rooh Afza diluted with milk.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

DELHI — On a scorching, humid afternoon in Old Delhi, Abdul Wahid hacks at a giant block of ice with a knife. The ice sits in a big pool of a deep, ruby-red liquid. As chunks break off, Wahid pours the icy liquid into plastic glasses and serves it as much as keen clients. A Hindi advert blaring from a speaker calls the drink “the life and pride of the summers.”

The drink is cool and refreshing, with candy, floral notes. It’s referred to as Rooh Afza, Urdu for “soul rejuvenator,” and it has been South Asia’s go-to summer time beverage for over a century.

Sold as a thick, crimson syrup, Rooh Afza — billed as “the summer drink of the East” — is mostly diluted with water or milk and lends itself properly to desserts. In Delhi, the place it originated, households inventory their fridges with bottles of Rooh Afza all summer time lengthy. It’s additionally a staple throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when trustworthy break their dawn-to-dusk quick with Rooh Afza and dates.

Abdul Wahid has been serving Rooh Afza to clients in Old Delhi for greater than 15 years.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

conceal caption

toggle caption

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

Abdul Wahid has been serving Rooh Afza to clients in Old Delhi for greater than 15 years.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

“The sound of the summer birds and the taste of Rooh Afza, it just transports me,” says Delhi-based meals critic Marryam Reshii. She has loved the drink for the reason that Sixties. “You go to someone’s house and along will come a tray with an elderly maid serving you these tall glasses, she’ll give you Rooh Afza in that — and it just takes you back, it’s like entering into another world.”

Originally, Rooh Afza was meant as a medicinal preparation to beat the warmth. In 1907, Hakeem Hafeez Abdul Majeed, a unani or conventional drugs practitioner in Delhi, got here up with a components to alleviate the signs of maximum warmth.

His concoction included a wide range of herbs like mint, rose petals and khas, a kind of aromatic grass, that might assist cool the physique down. But folks appreciated the style a lot that bottles of the crimson syrup saved flying off the cabinets of his small store, referred to as Hamdard Laboratories.

Roof Afza has been South Asia’s go-to summer time beverage for over a century. The crimson liquid is often bought in bottles as a syrup to be diluted with milk or water.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

conceal caption

toggle caption

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

Roof Afza has been South Asia’s go-to summer time beverage for over a century. The crimson liquid is often bought in bottles as a syrup to be diluted with milk or water.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

After Majeed died, his spouse and two sons continued the enterprise. When the Indian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, one of many sons moved to Pakistan and established a separate department of Hamdard there, whereas the opposite son continued the enterprise in India.

Both companies are independently run at this time however their merchandise are “almost the same,” says Hamid Ahmed, Majeed’s great-grandson, at the moment the CEO of Hamdard India’s meals division, whose annual turnover is almost $70 million. In 2020, the corporate reported that it earned greater than $37 million from Rooh Afza gross sales alone.

A charitable belief was established in 1948 and “till date, 85% of our profits go to charity,” Ahmed says. That’s additionally true for Hamdard Pakistan.

More than 20 substances go into Rooh Afza, says Ahmed. Sugar and the distillate of 10 herbs are key components of the recipe, which is saved secret, however is understood to incorporate coriander, aromatic screwpine, chicory, stone flower (a kind of lichen) and fruit juices. The drink will get its hanging crimson hue from meals coloring.

Today, Rooh Afza is Hamdard’s star product, accounting for 60% of its India enterprise, Ahmed says. “Nine hundred million glasses of Rooh Afza are consumed every year in India,” he says.

Manufacturing begins in January, to construct inventory forward of the nation’s peak summer time months of April and May, when demand surges.

“During peak season, there are around 20 to 25 trucks of Rooh Afza going out of the factory every single day,” Ahmed says. Production continues till June, earlier than pausing for upkeep.

Forty million bottles of Rooh Afza had been manufactured final 12 months, Ahmed says.

Cartons of Rooh Afza bottles transfer up a conveyor belt and right into a truck, able to be dispatched from Hamdard’s manufacturing unit close to Delhi.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

conceal caption

toggle caption

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

Cartons of Rooh Afza bottles transfer up a conveyor belt and right into a truck, able to be dispatched from Hamdard’s manufacturing unit close to Delhi.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

While the traditional Rooh Afza focus, bought in 25-ounce bottles, remains to be widespread amongst older adults, Hamdard has been attempting to attraction to youthful clients, introducing new variants like a fizzy, ready-to-drink model and a Rooh Afza fusion drink blended with juices. There’s additionally a sugar-free various and a Rooh Afza milkshake.

For these on the go, “We have also come out with a sachet of Rooh Afza, where you can open a bottle of water and then just pour a sachet — one dosage of fluids — into your bottle, shake it and consume it whenever you want,” says Ahmed.

While the commonest method of making ready Rooh Afza is by mixing one or two tablespoons in milk or water — and there is a heated debate amongst followers about which is best — Ahmed says he himself prefers a barely totally different model.

“Rooh Afza mixed with soda and a little bit of lemon is the ideal drink that I have,” he says.

Food critic Reshii says you can too add sabja, or basil seeds, to Rooh Afza and milk. Basil seeds are like chia seeds however take in water instantly and swell up. They’re filled with fiber and minerals and are sometimes added to South Asian drinks and desserts as a thickening agent. Experimental cooks have integrated the ruby-red liquid into quite a lot of recipes — from cocktails to falooda, an Indian dessert made with ice cream and vermicelli.

A stall in Old Delhi sells a particular Rooh Afza preparation made with milk and watermelon. It’s referred to as Sharbat-e-Mohabbat or the drink of affection.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

conceal caption

toggle caption

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

A stall in Old Delhi sells a particular Rooh Afza preparation made with milk and watermelon. It’s referred to as Sharbat-e-Mohabbat or the drink of affection.

Sushmita Pathak for NPR

Old Delhi can also be identified for a particular, widespread Rooh Afza preparation referred to as Sharbat-e-Mohabbat, or the drink of affection. It’s a pink beverage made with Rooh Afza blended in milk and watermelon juice, served with ice.

But after making ready the drink all day, at the least one vendor admits he would not actually look after Rooh Afza. And he is not alone.

The drink has a fair proportion of haters. Some discover it too candy and take into account its sugar content material unhealthy. Reshii, the meals critic, needed to reduce down her personal Rooh Afza indulgence 10 years in the past, after she was recognized with diabetes. Since then, she says, summers are simply not the identical anymore.

Some clients in Old Delhi mentioned they like lemonade over Rooh Afza. It can also be up in opposition to a flood of competitors from newer drinks like smooth drinks and carbonated juices and has impressed knockoffs too.

However, Reshii says, Rooh Afza endures. “Any product has ups and downs,” she says. “But this thing is something that has weathered all storms.”

In the market surrounding Old Delhi’s historic Jama Masjid, Rooh Afza vendor Wahid has seen for himself the drink’s enduring attraction. He’s been pouring it for 15 years at a stall that has been in his household for 3 generations.

“Those who have Rooh Afza once,” he says, “always come back.”