Rooh Afza, relished across borders, eyes new palates

Its original recipe, more than a century old, is tucked away in a highly secure, temperature-controlled family archive in India’s capital. But the sugary summer cooler Rooh Afza, with a poetic name that means “soul refresher” and evokes the narrow alleys of its birthplace of Old Delhi, has long reached across the heated borders of South Asia to quench the thirst of generations.

In Pakistan, the thick, rose-coloured syrup — called a sharbat or sherbet and poured from a distinctive long-neck bottle — is mixed with milk and crushed almonds as an offering in religious processions. In Bangladesh, a new groom often takes a bottle or two as a gift to his in-laws.

The same old taste is also there in new packaging to appeal to a new generation and to new drinkers: in the juice boxes in children’s school bags, in cheap one-time sachets hanging at tobacco stalls frequented by labourers, and in high-end restaurants where it’s whipped into the latest ice cream offering. As summer heat waves worsen, the drink’s reputation as a natural, fruitsand-herbs cooler that lowers body temperature and boosts energy — four-fifths of it is sugar — means that even a brief interruption in manufacturing results in huge outcries over a shortage.

The drink brings about $45 million of profit a year in India alone, its manufacturer says, most of it going to a trust that funds schools, universities and clinics. “It might be that one ingredient or couple of ingredients have changed because of availability, but by and large the formula has remained the same,” said Hamid Ahmed, a member of the fourth generation of the family who runs the expanded food wing of Hamdard Laboratories, which produces the drink.

In the summer of 1907 in Old Delhi, the young herbalist, Hakim Abdul Majid, sought a potion that could help ease many of the complications that come with the country’s unbearable heat — heat strokes, dehydration, diarrhoea. What he discovered was less medicine and more a refreshing sherbet. It was a hit. The bottles, glass then and plastic now, would fly off the shelves of his small medicine store, which he named Hamdard.

Majid died 15 years later, at 34. He was survived by his wife, Rabea Begum, and two sons; one was 14, and the other a toddler. Begum made a decision that turned Hamdard into an enduring force and set a blueprint for keeping it profitable for its welfare efforts at a time when politics would tear the country asunder.

She declared Hamdard a trust, with her and her two young sons as the trustees. The profits would go not to the family but largely to public welfare. The company’s biggest test came with India’s bloody partition. Somewhere between one million and two million people died, and families — including Begum’s — were split up. Hakim Abdul Hamid, the older son, stayed in India. He became a celebrated academic and oversaw Hamdard India.

Hakim Mohamad Said, the younger son, moved to the newly formed Pakistan. He gave up his role in Hamdard India to start Hamdard Pakistan and produce Rooh Afza there. He rose to become the governor of Pakistan’s Sindh Province but was assassinated in 1998. When in 1971 Pakistan was also split in half, with Bangladesh emerging as another country, the facilities producing Rooh Afza in those territories formed their own trust: Hamdard Bangladesh.

All three businesses are independent, run by extended members, or friends, of the young herbalist’s family. But what they offer is largely the same taste, with slight variations.

During a visit to Rooh Afza’s India factory in April, which coincided with Ramadan, workers in full protective gowns churned out 270,000 bottles a day. At the loading dock in the back, from dawn to dusk, two trucks at a time were loaded with more than a 1,000 bottles each and sent off to warehouses and markets across India.

Ahmed — who runs Hamdard’s food division, for which Rooh Afza remains the central product — is trying to broaden a mature brand with offshoots to attract consumers who have moved away from the sherbet in their teenage and young adult years. New products include juice boxes that mix Rooh Afza with fruit juice, a Rooh Afza yogurt drink and a Rooh Afza milkshake.

One survey the company conducted showed that half of Rooh Afza in Indian households was consumed as a flavour in milk, the rest in cold drinks. “We did our twist of milkshake,” Ahmed said, “which is Rooh Afza, milk and vanilla.”

Ahmed is proud of two products in particular. One is a sugar-free version of the original Rooh Afza, 15 years in the making as the company looked for the right substitute for sugar. More than twice the price of the original, it caters to a more affluent segment. “There is a growing market, for runners, athletes, those who watch what they eat and drink,” said Ahmed, also a runner.

With the other product, he is targeting those who can’t afford the 750-milliliter bottle, which sells for $2, offering one-time sachets that sell for 15 cents.

The drink brings about $45 million of profit a year in India alone, its manufacturer says, most of it going to a trust that funds schools, universities and clinics