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Cultural Ferment

Handia (Haria): Eastern India’s Rice Beer and Its Herbal Ranu Starter

By Updated 2 min read

Handia is the traditional rice beer of India’s Adivasi communities in Jharkhand, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh — brewed using ranu starter tablets made from 20+ medicinal plants by Ho, Munda, Santali, and Oraon peoples. The herbal starter provides amylolytic enzymes, curated microorganisms, and antimicrobials in a single tablet. Learn the cultural history, ranu composition science, nutritional transformation, and complete home recipe.

At a glance

Handia (haria) is the rice beer of Adivasi communities in Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh: cooked rice fermented for 2–4 days with ranu, dried herbal starter tablets that carry molds and yeasts, then diluted with water. In haria, molds and yeasts peak on day 2 while lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria keep rising. At home, a dried Asian rice-wine starter ball can stand in for ranu.

  • Rice beer of Santal, Munda, Ho, Oraon and other Adivasi communities of eastern India.
  • Fermented with ranu (bakhar): dried tablets of rice flour and local plants.
  • Asparagus racemosus root is a common starter ingredient.
  • Molds and yeasts peak around day 2; lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria rise.
  • Brewing yeast alone can't ferment rice starch – the starter needs molds.

Ferment profile

Origin
Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, India
Fermentation
Mixed (lactic + alcoholic)
Main microbes
Amylolytic molds and yeasts from the ranu starter; lactic acid bacteria and Bifidobacterium
Live cultures
Yes
Alcohol
Moderate (2–6%)

Handia – also called haria or hadia – is the rice beer of Adivasi (tribal) communities across eastern and central India, including the Santal, Munda, Ho and Oraon peoples of Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. Cooked rice is mixed with a dried herbal starter called ranu (or bakhar), left for a few days until it turns sweet, sour and gently alcoholic, then diluted with water and strained or drunk with the rice. It’s an everyday drink and food as well as a part of festivals, weddings and offerings.

Ranu: The Starter

Ranu tablets are small dried cakes of rice flour mixed with roots, bark and leaves of local plants, with recipes that vary by family and village. Their job is the same as other Asian rice-wine starters: to carry molds that turn starch into sugar and yeasts that turn sugar into alcohol. The root of Asparagus racemosus (shatavari) is a common starter ingredient; used on its own as a starter for rice in a lab study, it produced an acidic fermented rice with lactic acid bacteria, bifidobacteria and yeasts (Hor et al., 2022). India has many such traditionally prepared starters for cereal-based alcoholic drinks, each carrying its own mix of molds and yeasts (Tamang, 2022).

What Happens in the Pot

In a study following haria fermentation, molds and yeasts were most numerous on the second day and then declined, while lactic acid bacteria and Bifidobacterium increased throughout. Starch-splitting enzymes and sugars such as maltose and maltotriose built up as the rice broke down (Ghosh et al., 2015). That’s why young handia is sweet and older handia is sourer and stronger. Researchers have isolated a Levilactobacillus brevis strain with probiotic traits from Odisha handia (Sethi et al., 2025) – a lab finding, not evidence that handia itself is a health drink. Alcohol strength varies a lot with the starter, temperature and time; treat it like beer.

Making It at Home

If you can get ranu tablets from an Adivasi producer or grocer, use them as in the recipe card. If not, a dried Asian rice-wine starter ball – Indonesian ragi, Chinese yeast balls or Himalayan marcha – works the same way and gives a handia-style rice beer. Don’t substitute brewing yeast and herbs: yeast alone can’t break down rice starch. And don’t make your own starter from plants you can’t identify with certainty. Like any homebrew, it contains alcohol – not for children or during pregnancy. For related rice and millet drinks, see Indonesian tapai, Philippine tapuy, Korean makgeolli and Nepali tongba. In Assam, the Dimasa brew a rice wine, judima, with a starter cake of rice and bark.

Recipe: Handia-Style Rice Beer

Makes
About 1.5 litres
Hands-on
45 min
Fermentation
2–4 days at 25–30°C
Temperature
25–30°C (77–86°F)
Difficulty
Moderate

Equipment

  • Pot or rice cooker
  • Clean tray
  • Clay pot or 2-litre jar
  • Cloth cover
  • Strainer or cloth

Ingredients

  • 500 g rice (short-grain or local parboiled rice)
  • 2–3 tablets (or 1–2 balls) ranu, or a dried Asian rice-wine starter ball (finely crushed)
  • About 1 litre water (boiled and cooled, for diluting)

Method

  1. Cook the rice until soft, then spread it on a clean tray and cool to lukewarm (below about 35°C).
  2. Sprinkle the crushed starter over the rice and mix it through evenly with a clean spoon.
  3. Pack loosely into the clean pot or jar, make a small well in the center, cover with a cloth and keep at 25–30°C.
  4. After 1–2 days the rice softens and sweet liquid gathers in the well. Taste daily; by day 2–4 it's sweet-sour and alcoholic.
  5. Add the cooled boiled water, stir, leave an hour, then strain – or serve with some of the rice. Refrigerate and drink within a day or two.
  6. Discard if you see black, green or pink mold, or it smells putrid rather than sweet, sour and yeasty.

Frequently asked questions

What is handia?

A rice beer from eastern India – cooked rice fermented for a few days with herbal ranu starter tablets, then diluted and strained. It's also called haria or hadia.

What is ranu?

A dried starter tablet of rice flour and local plant roots, bark and leaves. It carries the molds and yeasts that turn rice starch into sugar and then alcohol.

How strong is handia?

It varies with the starter, temperature and fermentation time. Treat it like beer; it gets sourer and stronger the longer it ferments.

Can I make handia without ranu?

Use a dried Asian rice-wine starter ball such as ragi or Chinese yeast balls. Brewing or bread yeast alone won't work, because it can't break down rice starch.

Is handia healthy?

It contains live microbes when fresh, and researchers have isolated potentially probiotic bacteria from it, but it's an alcoholic drink. Drink it in moderation.

What's the difference between handia and haria?

They're regional names for the same kind of rice beer; Santal communities often call it haria.

Sources

  1. Ghosh K et al. (2015). Microbial, saccharifying and antioxidant properties of an Indian rice based fermented beverage. Food Chem 168:196–202. Link
  2. Hor PK et al. (2022). Preparation of rice fermented food using root of Asparagus racemosus as herbal starter and assessment of its nutrient profile. Syst Microbiol Biomanuf 2(1):147–156. Link
  3. Sethi M et al. (2025). Whole genome mining and characterization of a new probiotic strain Levilactobacillus brevis ILSH3 from Handia: an ethnic fermented beverage of Odisha, India. Probiotics Antimicrob Proteins 17(3):1596–1614. Link
  4. Tamang JP (2022). "Ethno-microbiology" of ethnic Indian fermented foods and alcoholic beverages. J Appl Microbiol 133(1):145–161. Link
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