Kapurthala Sugarcane Jaggery Kolhu Pressing

Kapurthala's fertile Doab soils yield sugarcane in autumn, and village kolhu presses in Dhilwan and Sultanpur Lodhi tehsils extract fresh cane juice that is boiled in open iron pans to prepare gur jaggery and shakkar brown sugar. The kolhu pressing season from November to January is a festive time in Kapurthala's villages when neighbours share freshly pressed juice and hot liquid gur poured into moulds to set. Kapurthala's proximity to the Sutlej and Beas river plain gives its cane higher sucrose content than drier Malwa cane, producing darker, stronger gur favoured for cooking festival sweets.