Is The Jaggery House’s Solid Jaggery Worth The Money?

Be it chikki, para, puranpoli, or other traditional sweets, gud or jaggery is at the heart of them all.

When it comes to jaggery, the purity and quality are more often than not, compromised. While researching on the new launches in the F&B sector, we came across an organic variant of this natural sweetener. Intrigued, we ordered a pack, and here’s our The Jaggery House Solid Jaggery review.

Is this a unique product? If yes, what makes it stand out? How is it priced?

All crucial details are mentioned in the table below. 

Since The Jaggery House Solid Jaggery claims to be an all-natural product, its freshness and flavor were chosen as the primary parameters. 

Is the characteristic flavor of jaggery replicated here? What about the appearance? 

1. Taste and Freshness 

These preservative-free jaggery cubes are handmade and contain no essence or preservatives. The flavors were compared to the local jaggery blocks we’ve been having since we were kids. 

Are the flavors identical or did we spot some variations? More importantly, did it taste fresh or were there odd flavors?

2. Texture

In the form of blocks, jaggery has a caramelised velvet-like texture that can be scraped off using a knife or spoon. While the texture is dependant heavily on the regional temperature, we gauged it to see if it was gritty, grainy, or smooth, soft, or crystallized?

3. Other Parameters

Price, packaging, ingredients were the non-tasting parameters we also took into consideration. 

Price + Packaging

450 grams of jaggery blocks are priced at Rs 140/- which have a shelf life of nine months. The blocks are placed in a plastic wrapper which is further covered in a brown box packing and tied with a brown string. 

Nutrition Quotient

This is prepared with just one ingredient, sugarcane juice. It contains no essence or preservatives. It is also mentioned that extracts of plant hibiscus ficulneus is used as  the cleansing agent. (okra)

The caloric values are 385.2 Kcal which is almost identical to that of refined sugar. The key difference between the nutrition profile of these sweeteners is that, jaggery has a higher iron content than table sugar.

Our Review Process

To get a fair idea of the taste as well as texture, we tasted this jaggery raw. 

Mixing it into a beverage would impact the texture due to temperature, hence this was skipped. 

How is jaggery processed?

Sugarcane juice can range from a deep greyish green to a light yellow hue. The color of the liquid depends primarily on the color of the cane. This contains a variety of soluble and insoluble impurities that must be eliminated. Different states and districts follow different methods of processing. 

First, sugarcane juice is extracted. Then come the filtration and boiling processes. The juice is boiled in iron pans and a clarification agent like soda or okra juice (aka hibiscus ficulneus) is added as needed. 

This purified liquid is then cooled, dried, powdered (optional), packed, and shipped to stores. 

Tips to ensure purity and quality of jaggery

Fresh jaggery is majorly sweet. There are no salty or bitter flavors. 

As jaggery ages, it develops a slightly salty taste. Bitterness is an indicator of caramelisation processes during the boiling stage. 

If you sense a crystal-like textures on the palette, that could mean the jaggery has been artificially sweetened as well. 

Taste + Texture

This pack held small, ocher-golden cubes of jaggery. The hue was neither too deep nor were the cubes opaque. The taste and texture were both decent, nothing extraordinary. 

Compared to the regular gur we buy for personal use, these cubes felt drier and were harder to bite into. While the freshness was intact and the taste felt similar, that characteristic flavor of caramel was missed completely. 

That said, it did showcase the innate sweet-mildly sour aroma that jaggery typically has. 

Here are some interesting FAQs on The Jaggery House Solid Jaggery.

There you have it, Mishry’s in-depth review on The Jaggery House Solid Jaggery. The packaging and ingredient list were impressive aspects but the taste and texture were fairly ordinary. Moreover, this is priced steeply which may not fit everyone’s budget. 

Sugar, jaggery, honey, stevia, what’s your pick when it comes to sweeteners?