Sharbat-e-Bazoori: Unani Summer Sharbat Recipe and Sugar Truth
Ask an old style hakeem for something to cool “gurde ki garmi”, heat in the kidneys, and there is a fair chance he reaches for Sharbat-e-Bazoori before anything else. It is one of the more specific formulas in the Unani sharbat family, built around seeds rather than fruit, and it deserves a proper home version instead of the syrupy pharmacy bottle most people know it from.
The short version
- What it is: a cooling Unani seed and herb sharbat, traditionally for “garmi” and urinary discomfort
- Home yield: about 700 ml concentrate, makes 12 to 14 glasses diluted
- What it can plausibly do: add fluid and a cooling drink to a hot day
- What it cannot do: treat a kidney stone, a urine infection or diabetes related thirst
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What Sharbat-e-Bazoori actually is
Commercial bottles vary by manufacturer, but a traditional Bazoori style formula draws on cooling seeds and roots long used in Unani practice for what is described as “hararat” (heat) in the kidneys and bladder: kaseni (chicory) seed, khubbazi (mallow) seed, tukhm-e-kasni, gaozaban (borage) flowers, and often a little unnab (jujube) or khatmi root for texture and a mild soothing feel. Sugar, and sometimes rose water or kewra, carry the flavour. None of this is a drug in the pharmaceutical sense; it is a flavoured, seed thickened cold drink built on a tradition of “thanda” foods for hot weather and a temperament considered unbalanced toward heat.
Building a home version, step by step
You will not match a factory bottle exactly without its exact seed ratio, but a reasonable home approximation, made from ingredients sold at most pansari (herb shop) counters, gets you something close and lets you control the sugar yourself.
- Soak 15 g khubbazi (mallow) seeds and 10 g kaseni (chicory) seeds in 250 ml water for 3 to 4 hours, until they turn slightly gelatinous.
- Separately, simmer 5 g dried gaozaban (borage) flowers and 20 g deseeded, chopped unnab (jujube) in 500 ml water for 15 minutes, then strain and keep the liquid.
- Combine both liquids with the soaked seeds (do not discard the soaking water, it is part of the thickness).
- Add 150 to 200 g sugar, adjusted to taste, and warm gently only until the sugar dissolves; do not boil hard or the flowers turn bitter.
- Cool completely, strain if you prefer a smoother drink, and bottle. This gives roughly 700 ml of concentrate.
- To serve, mix 2 to 3 tablespoons of concentrate into a glass of chilled water, about 200 ml, and stir well since the seeds settle.
Keep the concentrate refrigerated and use within a week; it has no preservative beyond the sugar, and mallow seed drinks spoil faster than you would expect from the smell alone.
What it can do, and what it genuinely cannot
Reasonably: it adds fluid, a moment of proper cold, and seeds that give a mild, mucilage like soothing feeling in the throat and gut, similar to what tukh malanga or sabja do in other sharbats. That is worth something on a 42°C afternoon.
What it cannot do, whatever the bottle label implies with words like “kidney tonic”: it does not dissolve or prevent kidney stones, it does not treat a urinary tract infection, and it does no work against the actual heat stress of a heatstroke, which needs cooling of the body and, in a bad case, an emergency room, not a sharbat. If “garmi” symptoms mean burning urination, cloudy or smelly urine, fever, or lower back pain that will not settle, that is a possible infection or stone and needs a doctor and, usually, a urine test, not a syrup. Our piece on Khoon Ki Garmi (Heat in the Blood) goes further into which of these folk descriptions map onto something a doctor would actually investigate, and which are just a way of describing feeling unwell in the heat.
A cold drink can make a hot day bearable. It cannot make a kidney stone go away.
The sugar truth, and who should skip it
This is the part most sharbat writeups skip. A 200 ml serving diluted from the recipe above, at roughly 150 to 200 g sugar per 700 ml batch, carries somewhere around 6 to 13 g of sugar, roughly one and a half to three teaspoons, per glass depending on how much sugar you used and how strong you pour it. That is not a large amount next to a bottled soft drink, but it adds up over a hot afternoon if you drink three or four glasses, and a diabetic drinking it as “just a cooling home remedy” without counting it is making the same mistake people make with fruit juice.
| Who | Sensible approach |
|---|---|
| Healthy adult | 1 to 2 glasses a day is a normal treat, not a medicine |
| Diabetic (diet controlled) | Use a sugar substitute in the syrup step, or skip it and take the seeds soaked in plain water with a little lemon |
| Diabetic on insulin or sulfonylureas | Count it like any sweet drink against your daily carbohydrate allowance; talk to whoever manages your diabetes before making it a habit |
| Pregnant or breastfeeding | Small amounts as a flavoured drink are generally fine; skip concentrated herbal formulas with unnab or gaozaban in larger, “medicinal” quantities without asking your doctor first |
| Child under 5 | Offer a very dilute version occasionally; seeds like khubbazi and kaseni are not established as safe in babies and should not replace their normal fluids |
Sharbat, thermally speaking: where this fits among summer drinks
Unani food logic sorts ingredients by temperament, hot or cold, wet or dry, and treats summer as a season to lean toward cooling, moist foods. Sharbat-e-Bazoori is considered strongly cold and wet in this system, which is why hakeems traditionally paired it with “garmi” complaints rather than, say, a winter cough. It sits in the same shelf as khus and sandal sharbat, which lean on vetiver root and (often only nominal) sandalwood flavour, and falsa sharbat, which is closer to a straightforward fruit syrup with its own tartness doing the cooling work. If you want the wider picture of how Unani pharmacy sorts jawarish, majoon, arq and sharbat into different categories of preparation, our explainer on Unani preparations decoded covers where sharbat sits in that family and why it is considered the gentlest form.
Buying it instead of making it
If you would rather buy a bottle, a few checks help. Shake it: a properly made Bazoori sharbat should show visible mucilage or slight cloudiness from the seeds, not run perfectly clear like a soft drink syrup. Check the ingredient list for actual named seeds (khubbazi, kaseni) rather than just “herbal extract” and colour. And check the date; opened bottles left in a warm pantry through a Karachi summer degrade fast, going flat in smell within weeks even before the printed expiry.
In older Unani practice, cooling sharbats like Bazoori were often prescribed alongside advice to reduce foods considered heating (chillies, excess meat, foods eaten very hot) during a spell of “garmi” complaints, and to increase plain water and cooling foods like cucumber and melon. This is described here as a long standing tradition of dietary balance, not as a treatment with proven clinical effect on any kidney or urinary condition.
Do not use any concentrated “kidney” sharbat as a substitute for seeing a doctor about actual urinary symptoms: burning urination, blood in urine, fever, or pain that will not settle. Diabetics should count the sugar in every glass rather than treating it as sugar free because it is “herbal”. People on diuretics or blood pressure medicine should mention any new herbal drink they are taking regularly to their doctor, since some seed and root mixtures can interact. Keep it away from infants, and if you are pregnant, ask your doctor before using it as anything more than an occasional flavoured drink.
For more seasonal swaps, from monsoon gut safety to load shedding fridge rules, browse the rest of our Season Shift series, including our companion piece on monsoon stomach infections and fridge rules.
FAQ
Is Sharbat-e-Bazoori the same in every brand?
No. Formulas vary by manufacturer in exact seed ratio, sugar level and added flavouring, which is part of why a home version will taste slightly different from any one bottle.
Can Sharbat-e-Bazoori help with a kidney stone?
No. It has no established effect on dissolving or preventing kidney stones. Stone symptoms, severe pain, blood in urine, need medical evaluation and treatment.
Is it safe for diabetics?
Only in a sugar reduced or sugar free version, and even then it should be counted as a sweet drink, not treated as a neutral herbal remedy.
How long does the homemade concentrate keep?
About a week refrigerated. It has no preservative besides sugar, and mallow seed based drinks spoil faster than their smell suggests, so trust the calendar over your nose.
Can children drink it?
A very dilute, occasional glass is generally fine for older children as a treat, but it should never replace their normal water intake, and it is not recommended as a routine drink for children under 5.