These concentrated cane juice balls are amazing. They are an healthy alternative to sugar and is equally tasty. I am a great fan of sweets and I believe world without jaggery would be tasteless.
Last year, on my trip to a nearby city, we happened to stop over at this jaggery making center. I had been to many such small scale factories earlier, but I wanted my son to see how much it takes to make these balls of happiness. So we stopped at this factory that was run by a lady and had over 10 employees who were working in front of the burning sugar cane liquid churning it every now and then under fire on a hot afternoon.
The place was an open ground that had a small sheltered place that had a special burning place. The ground was covered in tonnes of sugarcane. There were sugarcanes everywhere. I wonder how they knew which lot to take first. There was fresh stocks coming in in trucks. They also has a machine to extract juice from these sugar cane. Two workers were busy extracting the juice and as they saw us they got these huge mugs which were overflowing with cane juice. The machine was fitted with a pipe that drained the juice in a huge vessel that was on fire all the time. As the juice was collected in the vessel, the workers would add more fuel to the fire that would boil the cane juice. The workers keep stirring the juice till it thickens and gets the desired consistency. The process, they said, usually take something between 6 to 8 hours.
The vessel was fixed with chains that were connected to the pulley. When the lever was covered the chains would lift the hot vessel with hot jaggery mixture and drop it into the wooden board where it is allowed to cool and later on rolled into jaggery balls.
It is hard work and kids hardly know the efforts that goes into making these balls of sugar.