Palm wine still yields a good tale
Long before sauvignon blanc and other wine-producing grapes reached sub-Saharan Africa on board colonial ships, Africans south of the Sahara celebrated and socialised with their own wine siphoned from trees.
Palm wine - the fermented sap of certain palm tree varieties - is a clear, colourless drink popular at festivals and other social events. Its alcohol levels reach up to 5 per cent. Admirers of Africa's celebrated storytelling tradition have palm wine partly to thank, says Isaac Djagbletey of Ghana's Centre for National Culture.
'When people gather and drink palm wine, the elders come out with rich proverbs,' he says. 'They share life experiences and tell jokes. They remember the good old days and advise the young ones.'
Freshly 'tapped' from a tree, palm wine is sweet. But it quickly grows sour and more alcoholic. The wine is a traditional drink across western and central Africa's tropical countries, where oil and raphia palms grow wild and in abundance. The trees' better-known cousin, the coconut palm, is not indigenous to Africa and is avoided by tappers.
Palm wine is ready to drink immediately after tapping and is consumed by men and women. Sometimes herbs or sugar are added, and it is popularly believed to bring good health, relaxation and sexual potency.
'If I take about a litre, that is OK. Some take two litres or half a litre and they are in the mood,' says Liberian Amos Ross Gbortoe, a public health specialist living in Ghana. The 39-year-old is a self-described connoisseur of palm wine.
A palm tree is ready to yield its juice after 15 to 20 years, says Israel Kubi, 46, who learned wine-making at the age of nine from his uncle in the dense forests east of Ghana's capital, Accra.
'You want a healthy tree that has received a lot of sun. The bigger the better.'
A small hole is bored into the soft, inner core of a tree, and the juice is collected through a reed that spills into a container. Palm trees can be tapped while still alive or after being felled.
Oil palm plantations have become big business for oil production in parts of Africa, but palm wine remains a cottage industry.
Mr Kubi, like other palm tappers, grows his trees on a small farm. But because of the long maturation period, he often buys aged trees from neighbours.
A good palm tree can produce one to two litres a day for more than a month, according to Mr Kubi, who sells his wine to restaurants, bars and market women. Five litres fetch about US$3 in rural Ghana.
But the traditional drink has been hit hard by modern influences. Africa's urban set increasingly chooses beer or spirits when celebrating, and few restaurants or bars in large cities bother to serve palm wine.
It is in rural areas, like most African customs, that palm wine matters most. There, elderly men still gather under trees to chew over the day's news - and palm wine, fresh and sweet from the tree, still provokes colourful stories of years past.
