Muscovado Sugar Production in Santiago

Finally am posting something other than semi-rants. Great! Now, what I'll be sharing with you now was my visit to Bannawag Norte, a barangay in Santiago City, Isabela. This area is known for muscovado sugar production and pattupat-making. Muscovado sugar is unrefined brown sugar. It is said to be 'healthier' than regular brown sugar because there are less processes it has to go through so it retains a lot of the natural minerals.

I visited Bannawag Norte about 4 months ago. It was a short trip, but I learned a lot about muscovado sugar production. I even met Manang Lita, one of the pioneers in muscovado production in Santiago. She herself toured me around her family's work area, where she and her sons labor over hot pots of sugar can syrup. Muscovado sugar is actually Santiago City's OTOP (One Town, One Product), and Manang Lita has even been awarded for her production of muscovado.  

Before you get the syrup, of course you would need to gather sugar canes

This sugar cane pressing machine has already been 'modernized' by the owner, since he hooked it up to a motor

See all these pressed sugar canes?

This is another way of 'modernizing' the sugar cane pressing machine. Manang Lita's sons hooked up the mechanism of their machine to a kuliglig (hand tractor) and let it run loose going around the pressing machine. 

All the sugar canes are put in this machine and pressed/crushed to release the sugar cane juice

see? :)

The sugar cane juice is then boiled for an initial 4 hours. The impurities are skimmed and thrown away, then the juice (now a syrup) will continue being simmered for another 4 hours.

While the syrup is boiling, pattupat are submerged so that the delicacy can absorb all the sugar, which is why pattupat is really sweet.

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This is Manang Lita. She has been making muscovado sugar for almost 2 decades already.

You'll know that the pattupat is almost done when most of the liquid has evaporated and you're left with the rich sugar syrup.

Nothing is really wasted. The pressed sugar canes are dried and stored . Dried sugar canes are used as source of fuel for fire for cooking and making muscovado.

Our finished product. One the left is the finely ground muscovado, whereas on the right is the 'rejected' muscovado because these weren't properly ground. That's just basically the difference between the two, but both are equally good :)

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Another by-product of sugar cane is, obviously, cane vinegar. They usually sell this mixed with chili peppers. 

Another by-product is this type of jam.

This is the finished pattupat. You don't really need to look up close to see how sticky it is. That's because these are submerged in boiling sugar syrup for 4 hours :)