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Tongba: How to Make and Drink Nepal’s Hot-Water Millet Beer

By Updated 2 min read

Discover tongba, the traditional Himalayan fermented millet beer from Nepal and Tibet. This unique brew is served in a bamboo vessel with hot water poured over fermented grain and sipped through a filtered straw. Complete guide with marcha sourcing, 7-15 day fermentation, and authentic serving method.

At a glance

Tongba is eastern Nepal's traditional millet drink: cooked finger millet is fermented with a dried marcha starter for about a week, packed into a tall vessel, topped with hot water and sipped through a bamboo straw, with several refills. The fermented millet is sweet-sour with about 4.8% alcohol (Thapa & Tamang, 2004).

  • Made from finger millet (kodo) fermented with marcha, a dried mold-and-yeast starter.
  • Fermented millet (kodo ko jaanr): pH 4.1, 4.8% alcohol (Thapa & Tamang, 2004).
  • Yeasts such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomycopsis fibuligera dominate, with some lactic acid bacteria.
  • Served by pouring hot water over the millet and sipping through a bamboo straw; refilled several times.
  • Linked to higher odds of chronic liver disease among heavy drinkers in Nepal.

Ferment profile

Origin
Eastern Nepal (Limbu), Sikkim and Darjeeling
Fermentation
Mixed (lactic + alcoholic)
Main microbes
Molds from marcha; yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomycopsis fibuligera, Pichia anomala); lactic acid bacteria (Pediococcus pentosaceus)
Live cultures
Depends on preparation
Alcohol
Moderate (2–6%)

Tongba is a traditional drink of eastern Nepal – especially the Limbu people – and neighboring Sikkim and Darjeeling. The Limbu also make kinema, a sticky fermented soybean. Cooked finger millet (kodo) is fermented with a dried starter cake called marcha; the fermented grain (known as kodo ko jaanr) is packed into a tall vessel, traditionally bamboo, and topped up with hot water. After a few minutes you sip the warm, mildly sweet-sour, lightly alcoholic liquid through a bamboo straw (pipsing) that filters out the grain, then add more hot water – the same millet serves several refills. It’s central to hospitality and celebrations in the region.

How Tongba Is Made

  1. Cook finger millet until tender, then spread it out to cool.
  2. Add marcha: the crushed starter is sprinkled over the lukewarm grain and mixed in.
  3. Saccharify: the grain is heaped in a covered basket or pot for a day or two while molds from the marcha turn starch into sugar – it turns sweet and smells fruity.
  4. Ferment: it’s packed into a closed vessel for about a week or longer, as yeasts turn the sugar into alcohol.
  5. Serve: a vessel is filled with fermented millet and topped with hot water.

Marcha and the Microbes

Marcha is a dry starter made from rice with wild herbs and spices, inoculated with a piece of an earlier cake. It carries molds, yeasts and bacteria: across 35 dry starters from Nepal, Sikkim, the Darjeeling hills, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh, bacterial counts were 105–108 per gram, with lactic acid bacteria such as Pediococcus, Enterococcus, Lactobacillus plantarum and Weissella most common (Pradhan & Tamang, 2019).

In 40 samples of fermented millet (kodo ko jaanr) from Darjeeling and Sikkim, yeasts including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomycopsis fibuligera, Pichia anomala and Candida glabrata reached about 107 per gram and lactic acid bacteria (Pediococcus pentosaceus, Lactobacillus bifermentans) about 106. The millet had a pH of 4.1 and 4.8% alcohol, and no Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus or Enterobacteriaceae were detected (Thapa & Tamang, 2004). The liquid you drink is weaker, since it’s diluted with hot water.

Tongba and Health

Tongba is an alcoholic drink. In a Nepali hospital study of 1,500 patients with alcohol abuse or dependence, drinking tongba was associated with about three times the odds of chronic liver disease, even after adjusting for the total amount of alcohol consumed (Pradhan et al., 2015). Enjoy it occasionally, and not during pregnancy or if you avoid alcohol.

Where to Get Marcha

Look in Nepali, Tibetan and Himalayan grocery stores. If you can’t find it, Chinese yeast balls (for fermented rice) are a similar mold-and-yeast starter, though the flavor differs. For more on the region’s ferments, see a review of Eastern Himalayan fermented foods (Tamang et al., 2021).

Related: Tibetan barley chang, Indonesian sweet fermented rice tapai, and Nepal’s fermented greens gundruk. From the same mountains comes chhurpi, a cow- or yak-milk cheese eaten soft or dried rock-hard.

Recipe: Homemade Tongba

Makes
Enough millet for 4–6 servings (each refilled 2–3 times)
Hands-on
45 min
Fermentation
1–2 days saccharifying, then 5–10 days fermenting
Temperature
About 25–30°C (77–86°F)
Difficulty
Moderate

Equipment

  • Pot or steamer
  • Tray for cooling
  • Glass jar or crock with a lid
  • Tall heat-proof vessel and a filter straw for serving

Ingredients

  • 400 g (2 cups) whole finger millet (kodo / ragi) (rinsed)
  • 1–2 cakes (about 10–15 g) marcha (or Chinese yeast balls; finely crushed)
  • To serve hot water (just off the boil or a little cooler)

Method

  1. Soak the millet for a few hours, then steam or simmer it until tender but not mushy; drain well.
  2. Spread it on a clean tray and cool to lukewarm (about 30°C).
  3. Sprinkle the crushed marcha over the grain and mix thoroughly.
  4. Heap it in a covered bowl or basket in a warm place for 1–2 days, until it smells sweet and fruity.
  5. Pack it into a jar, close the lid and leave at room temperature for 5–10 days, until it tastes sweet-sour and alcoholic.
  6. To serve, fill a tall vessel about three-quarters with fermented millet, top up with hot water, wait 5 minutes and sip through a filter straw. Refill with hot water 2–3 times.
  7. Store the remaining fermented millet in a closed jar in the fridge.

Frequently asked questions

What is tongba?

A traditional drink of eastern Nepal, Sikkim and Darjeeling: fermented finger millet in a tall vessel, topped with hot water and sipped through a bamboo straw.

How do you drink tongba?

Pour hot water over the fermented millet, wait a few minutes, and sip through the straw, which filters out the grains. Add more hot water when the liquid runs low – usually 2–3 times.

How strong is tongba?

The fermented millet has about 4.8% alcohol; the drink is weaker because it's diluted with hot water.

What is marcha?

A dried starter cake of rice and herbs carrying molds, yeasts and bacteria, used across the Eastern Himalayas to make alcoholic drinks.

Can I make tongba without marcha?

Chinese yeast balls used for fermented rice are the closest substitute; the flavor will differ.

What does tongba taste like?

Warm, mildly sweet and sour, with a toasty grain flavor and gentle alcohol.

Is tongba the same as chhang?

They're close relatives. Chhang (chang) is the name across Tibetan-speaking areas and is often made from barley or rice; tongba is the millet version served with hot water in a tall vessel.

Sources

  1. Thapa S, Tamang JP (2004). Product characterization of kodo ko jaanr: fermented finger millet beverage of the Himalayas. Food Microbiol 21(5):617–622. Link
  2. Pradhan P, Tamang JP (2019). Phenotypic and genotypic identification of bacteria isolated from traditionally prepared dry starters of the Eastern Himalayas. Front Microbiol 10:2526. Link
  3. Pradhan B et al. (2015). Alcoholic liver disease in Nepal: identifying homemade alcohol as a culprit. Clin Exp Gastroenterol 8:183–189. Link
  4. Tamang JP et al. (2021). Diversity of beneficial microorganisms and their functionalities in community-specific ethnic fermented foods of the Eastern Himalayas. Food Res Int 148:110633. Link
#South Asia and the Himalayas
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