Skip to main content

Moke

Moke is a typical beverage on Flores island made from Siwalan or lontar or Asian palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) and enau or sugar palm (Arenga pinnata). These drinks have many titles including sopi and dewe, but the most familiar names and characteristics of the island are moke as a symbol of tradition, brotherhood and association for the local community.

Flores island in East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia, is very famous for Homo floresiensis on the Liang Bua site, beautiful nature, friendly people, unique cultural traditions and various garden produce including coffee, cloves and vanilla. In addition, people in Sikka District have a special ability to make traditional drinks.

Dlium Moke

Moke is a beverage with a high alcohol content and they make use of traditional methods that are passed down from generation to generation and are still carried out today. Making is done in gardens using earthenware for cooking. A bottle of moke takes 5 hours because it waits for droplets after droplets from a bamboo distillation device.

The best quality moke is only served on weekends and traditional events including weddings as a companion to the main dish and also served betel and areca nut which are consumed by women. Low quality moke can be found in stalls for IDR 20,000 a bottle.

People in Flores usually consume moke with a variety of snacks including sour fish, grilled fish, goat soup and grilled banana. Banquets are often done outside such as on the beach, in the yard and under the trees.

Dlium.com Moke

Making moke

Harvesting begins by storing flower water in the tree into a bamboo tube 15 cm in diameter and 1 meter in length. Flower selection is the most important process to be able to produce quality and quantity of water. Palm buds are opened using a knife carefully. Flowers are sliced about 0.5 cm and water is collected with bamboo.

Bamboo must be filled with betel lime or special leaves to prevent acidic water. Storage is carried out in the morning and evening because it has to climb a 19 meter tall tree. A 15-year-old trees produce 8-10 liters which have been collected for approximately one day. The water is then given onion and basil leaves to be ready to serve as a drink.

www.dlium.com Moke

Farmer treatment

Weasels will sow Asian palmyra palm and sugar palm seeds, while humans reap the rewards after becoming large. This animal takes and brings fruit to safe places for food. Palm seeds are left to fall to the ground and grow. The garden owner will not cut down and let the two trees grow naturally on dry land.

Farmers only clean around the trees once in the growing season and these trees continue to live wildly without fertilization and special treatment although they provide many benefits including water for moke, sopi and sugar ingredients.



Now moke is also used as one of the raw materials for fermentation of vegetable fertilizers and pesticides for cocoa and palm fiber to make brooms and roofs. Sugar palm fruit causes itching of the skin to dispel mouse pests that intend to attack rice plants.

Traditional farmers greatly value the sugar palm tree where the root system raises the surface of the soil to become fertile. This plant also prevents erosion if it floods during the rainy season. Both trees must not be disturbed at all by humans and the threat of destruction from outside parties is always monitored.

Popular Posts

Javan broadhead planarian (Bipalium javanum)

Cacing palu or Javan broadhead planarian ( Bipalium javanum ) is a species of animal in Geoplanidae, hermaphrodite, living on the ground, predators, often called only hammerhead or broadhead or shovel worms because of wide heads and simple copulatory organs. B. javanum has a slim stature, up to 20 cm long, up to 0.5 cm wide, head wide up to 1 cm or less, small neck, widening in the middle and the back end is rounded, all black and shiny. Javan broadhead planarians walk above ground level by raising their heads and actively looking left, right and looking up using strong neck muscles. Move swiftly, track meander, climb to get through all obstacles or make a new path if the obstacle is too high. Cacing palu track and prey on earthworms and mollusks. They use muscles and sticky secretions to attach themselves to prey to lock in. The head and ends of the body are wrapped around and continue to close the body to stop prey reactions. They produce tetrodotoxins which are very strong...

Swietenia mahagoni and Swietenia macrophylla, the differences

SPECIES HEAD TO HEAD - To date, mahogany ( Swietenia Jacq.) is recorded as having four species: West Indian mahogany or small-leaved mahogany ( Swietenia mahagoni (L.) Jacq.), big-leaf mahogany ( Swietenia macrophylla King), Honduran mahogany ( Swietenia humilis Zucc.) and Swietenia × aubrevilleana StehlĂ© & Cusin. The debate over the number of taxa in the genus is still not resolved. Some researchers believe that there are only two species: S. mahagoni and S. macrophylla . I agree with that opinion and the two species can only be differentiated by the size of the leaves. All species in this genus have similar morphology except for leaf size. The following is the key to identifying these two species. S. mahagoni has a stalk length of around 37 cm with 5-6 pairs of strands. The strands are about 10 cm long and about 3.5 cm wide. S. macrophylla has a stalk length of up to 45 cm with 4-5 pairs of strands. The strands are up to 31 cm long and up to 8 cm wide. By Aryo Bando...

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...