Bael Fruit: What It Is, Where It Comes From

All About Bengal Quince or Golden Apples and How to Make Bael Tea

Mar 11, 2009

The humble Asian golden apple is being discovered in the West as the source of a soothing, therapeutic tea. Here's where it comes from and how to make the drink.

The common English name is bael fruit. In languages spoken in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, it’s known as bael, bel, bela, Bengal quince, bilwa (the Sanskrit word), bili, elephant apple, holy fruit, Indian quince, golden apple, maja, sirphal, siniphal, stone apple, maredoo and vilwa. To Thais, it’s matoom or mapin. To Lao, it's tum. In Malay dialects, it’s bilak, bel or maja pahit. In Indonesian, it's maja or maja batuh. In Javanese, modjo. In Khmer, phneou or pnoi. In Vietnamese, bau nau or trai mam. In Burmese, opshit or opesheet. The Portuguese colonialists called it marmelos. Later French ones called it oranger du Malabar.

Holy Fruit and Holy Leaves

Botanically speaking, a bael tree is Aegle marmelos Correa. Bael trees grow wild in the dry forests of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and mainland Southeast Asia. They’re also cultivated in India and drier regions of Java in Indonesia and Luzon in the Philippines. Florida, Surinam and Trinidad are among the few places where bael trees are cultivated in the Western hemisphere.

With a soft flaky bark and glossy maroon leaves, the trees grow 10- to 15 meters (33 to 50 feet) tall. The most likely place to see bael trees is on the grounds of a Hindu temple in India. Bael trees are often cultivated near temples because they are believed to be sacred (thus the name “holy fruit”). Bael leaves are a customary offering to the god Shiva who is said to have lived under a bael tree.

Bael Sherbet

A ripe fruit is round or oval. The diameter ranges from 5 to 12 centimeters (2-12 inches). The rind is yellow or brown, with a woody texture similar to that of a mangosteen, but thicker. After removing the long flat seeds, Indonesians and Sri Lankans eat the pale orange pasty pulp mixed with palm sugar for breakfast. People in northeastern Thailand do something similar with the pulp and cane sugar. Indians make a fruit smoothie drink (a “sherbet” or "sharbet") from the pulp by beating in milk and sugar.

Indians also use mature but still unripe fruits to make jam, marmalade and syrup. They even make a toffee from the pulp. In marmalade, jelly or syrup form, people consume bael to treat diarrhea and dysentery.

Dysentery and Indigestion Medicine

A generation or so ago, before modern manufactured medicines became widespread, bael was commonly used to treat dysentery, constipation and digestive problems. That’s one reason why colonial powers brought the plant from South Asia to be cultivated in places like Java, Surinam and Trinidad.

Parts of the bael plant are used for medicine, food, hair tonic, glue, soap and construction materials, as described on this Purdue University page.

Beyond India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, the ripe fruit is rarely eaten. Perhaps the varieties are very different in other countries; on first bite, the flesh of these fruits tends to be astringent and swallowing it may lead to gagging.

The No Caffeine Tea

Bael still has a reputation as a remedy for mild indigestion and constipation but in northern Southeast Asia, it’s usually consumed in sweetened hot or cold tea—or, more accurately, as a bael fruit infusion. The drink is made by boiling the dried fruit.

The taste is slightly bitter. Even when served at monasteries, it’s sweetened with sugar. In Thailand, where monks can’t eat in the afternoon, nam matoom ("bael juice") is still occasionally taken as an evening beverage to stave off hunger pains, although warm soy milk is much more common. Contradictory it may be, but Thais also believe that a bael drink can perk up appetite. Regardless, it’s a suitable and soothing after-dinner or evening beverage because it contains no caffeine.

Shoppers in Asian supermarkets in the West can find bael in the same form as it is sold in online stores specializing in Asian, Thai or Indian foods or medicine: It comes in dried slices in clear plastic bags, with most of the seeds missing.

In Asia, look for the same item in traditional medicine and herb shops, organic food stores, the dry goods sections of big open markets, and in the tea aisles of modern supermarkets. (In Bangkok, try the health food shop next to SDA Mission Hospital's vegetarian cafeteria.) Less often, jars of “instant bael tea” turn up in the same outlets in Thailand. This is an off-white powder made from dried slices and already heavily sweetened with sugar.

Bael Tea Recipe

With the slices at hand, making bael tea is very simple. For a single serving of hot or cold tea:

Before boiling, some people first soften up the dried slices by briefly toasting them in a toaster oven or stove broiler. Here are pictures of bael drinks, hot and iced.

The copyright of the article Bael Fruit: What It Is, Where It Comes From in Tea is owned by Susan Cunningham. Permission to republish Bael Fruit: What It Is, Where It Comes From in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.