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He has 25 palm trees but harvests from each for just two and a half years before letting them rest for four years, producing around 8,000 litres annually.
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He carefully cuts the bark to cause a reaction from the palm that makes its sap rise.īut “one must not touch the heart of the palm, otherwise it dies,” Moussa warned. To extract a daily take of 15 litres (3.9 gallons), he climbs the palms barefoot, using nothing but notches he made in their trunks. Perched atop an eight-metre (26-foot) palm, cigarette between his lips, Moussa had just finished his harvest for the day. After God, there is the palm tree,” he said. “He who doesn’t love the palm tree is not Gabesian. Now in his sixties, he has harvested the nectar since learning the technique aged 14 from a relative in the Gabes oasis of Nahal. One of the producers is Ridha Omrane Moussa, who describes himself as the “prince of the palm tree”. “It’s something rare, it’s a gift,” he said.Ī producer must have an expert hand and not be too greedy to draw the sap from the palm without killing it, he said.Īt the Ain Slam roundabout, a 1.5-litre bottle sells for around 2.5 dinars ($0.87). “My grandfather and my father produced it, my one-and-a-half-year-old daughter has already drunk it, and me, I have even written a song about legmi,” said the singer, in his thirties.Īnother customer, Haithem, 30, described the drink as “part of our identity”.
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Many Tunisians enjoy legmi for breakfast, such as Akram, who has walked to the roundabout for the morning rush. Next to them are jugs brimming with the precious juice, a testament to the Gabes saying: “Even if the legmi attracts mosquitos, people will stick around.”įavoured particularly during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan for its high sugar content, this drink, typical of Saharan oases, is primarily consumed from March to October. As soon as the sun is up, people in southern Tunisia rush out to buy a glass or bottle of legmi, a coveted date palm drink that is too delicate to be sold far from the oasis.Īt 7:00 am, at the busy Ain Slam roundabout in the centre of the coastal city of Gabes, bicycles, cars and military vehicles are clustered around three men seated on plastic chairs.