Rewari

Rewari, or revri, is a small sugar confection coated in sesame seeds. It is popular in North India, Pakistan, and nearby areas, and comes in whitish versions made with white sugar and brown versions made with jaggery. It is finished as thin oval discs or small round pellets, offering the crunch of sugar and the aroma of roasted sesame.

Gur rewari resting in the palm of a hand (Lucknow, 2022, Yogabrata Chakraborty / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0). Reduced-size version from the source used; content not changed after retrieval.

Sesame mixed in, or coated on the outside

The basic ingredients are sugar and sesame, but the way they are combined varies. In one home method, jaggery is boiled into a thick syrup, roasted sesame is mixed in, and the mixture is divided into small portions and flattened. In other products, what stands out is the sugar pellet with its surface covered in sesame.

Unlike sweets made as a large slab and broken up later, rewari is shaped into bite-size pieces before it cools. Some home recipes describe dropping a little of the boiled-down syrup into water to check how it sets once cooled. The sesame mixture is divided into small portions while still warm enough to shape, and is finally coated with more sesame.

The sugar changes both color and flavor

Jaggery is a general term for sugar made by boiling down the juice or sap of sugarcane or palms. In rewari, it gives a brown color and a cooked-sugar flavor different from those of white sugar. Some commercial products use liquid glucose, so rewari cannot be defined by a single recipe of only sugar and sesame.

Even among pieces with a lot of sesame visible on the surface, the amount of seeds mixed inside and the hardness of the sugar vary from product to product. Looking at the shape of the pieces, the sesame on the surface, and the cross-section when broken all together reveals the differences among sweets sold under the same name.

A small sweet shared in winter

Rewari is one of the sweets set out for winter celebrations such as Lohri. It is often sold together with gajak and peanut sweets, forming part of North India’s winter sweet displays. The small pieces are easy to pack into bags and can also be shared out by hand. There are family memories of mothers and aunts making it in large quantities before Lohri; it is a sweet prepared as the season arrives.

In North India and Pakistan, it is also popular as a bagged souvenir.

Glossary