Sugar making process was known in India as early as 3000 B.C. In Sanskrit, the word sugar is Sakkara. Gaura, another old Indian word for sugar was derived from the name of Gur for domestic non-purified sugar.
Do you know how is sugar made by modern techniques? Before that it is worthwhile to know how sugarcanes and beets were first used to make sugar. Sugarcane is believed to have originated in Solomon Islands in South Pacific. The methods of sugarcane growing were passed from India to Indochina (modern Vietnam and Cambodia) and from Arabian countries to Europe. It is said that in 1493, Columbus brought sugarcane to the New World. Similarly beet grew wild in parts of Asia and also cultivated quite early in some part of Europe. In 1747, Andreas Marggraf, a German chemist proved that beet-roots contained sugar that can be extracted in crystalline form to make sugar.
In sugar mills sugarcanes are cut in size and pressed out by means of a set of three or more roller system. The juice is purified by heating and adding lime liquid. The juice is heated at a certain degree of temperature. The mixture is then passed through a juice purifier machine which separates the purified juice and the thick muddy juice. The purified part of the juice is then put on an evaporator fitted with filters. The juice, after further heating in a vaccum, boiling pan, turns to a crystalline substance. This is raw sugar. To make sugar white, the raw material is dissolved in water and the solution is filtered and heated again.
Similarly beets are washed with water through a washer in a plant and then they are packed up and sent to a bunker over a slicer. The process of making sugar from beet slices is almost the same as that of cane sugar.
Principal cane sugar producing countries are Guba, Brazil, India, Mexico, USA, China and Philippines. Beet sugar is mainly produced in countries like Russia, France, Italy, U.K. and Turkey.
