The fondness of Bengalis for anything sweet has led them to include a variety of sources for sugar in their cuisine, however, the most popular of these is date palm sugar. Date palms grow wild in almost all of rural Bengal and the trees are tapped for their sap in winter when it is the sweetest. The bark at the top of the tree is peeled and a pot is hung below it during the daytime. The sap collects in the pot overnight and the next morning before dawn the collected sap is brought down and boiled to crystallise it to sugar. Both the chunks and the amber coloured molasses of date palm sugar with a distinct aroma are high in demand among the Bengalis.

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The typical tapper is an agricultural labourer or a sharecropper for whom the abundance of sap in the trees during winter provides an opportunity to earn a livelihood through the lean winter months. At least a hundred trees need to be tapped each day to produce an economically viable amount of the sugar. Since a tree can be tapped once every three days to prevent it from running dry, a tapper would need a large enough grove to sustain the tapping season. At the end of each autumn, men like Bhola and Lalon set out far from their homes to a date grove. Once there, they set up a temporary shack (they call it a Mahal, that translates to a palace) built with date leaves and continue to live through the biting cold winter months in harsh and lonely conditions, producing the most favourite sweet savoury of the region. 

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The sugar produced is sold off to traders at marginal rates and little is left in their pockets after paying off their debts to the money lenders and the landholders. But driven by their love for the profession and their empty wallets, they will continue to come back and set camp in the harsh lands far away from their families irrespective of whether their efforts may come in the minds of those relishing mouthwatering treats in the comforts of their home.