Jamu is a herbal medicine
Jamu is the name the Indonesian give to a herbal medicine made from roots, bark, flower, seeds, leaves and often with honey or palm sugar.
Jamu is considered a cultural heritage. There are as many Jamu recipes as traditional healers, everyone has his own secret combination!
If you travel in a less touristy area of Bali, you’ll still find middle aged women carrying bamboo baskets full of different bottles of varied colors. They offer traditional remedies with a cure for everything under the sun!
My experience with traditional healers
I went once some time ago to consult a traditional massage therapist with some lower back pain/ strain that I was struggling to get read off.
The old man went to the back and return after little while with a concoction made of a white paste that looks like grinded chalk with water and spread it on my lower back. It felt very cooling and fresh. He then made a paste with ground turmeric and something that had the texture of snail slime and smeared that on my back. He covered the area with some leaves and ask me to keep it there until the morning.
Felt like when the turmeric paste dried out sucked also the inflammation out of my painful back!
In the morning I felt much better!
I use my Jamu when I feel on the verge of getting a flu. When I have a sore throat or when I feel cold and I need to warm up. Jamu also very useful to ease digestion, after a heavy meal.
Ingredients :
- a big mug of water 250ml more or less.
- 2cm. of fresh peeled grated ginger with all the juice included.
- 2cm. Of freshly grated turmeric root or ¼ teaspoon of dry turmeric powder.
- The juice of 1 lime or half lemon.
- 1 tablespoon of honey or less if you don’t like it sweet.
