It’s Called Jamu: What Wellness Culture Can Learn from the Past

Jun 10

Jamu is a tradition rooted in centuries of healing practices. Discover what the modern wellness industry can learn from this centuries-old herbal system rooted in ritual and community.

In Indonesia today, particularly in Yogyakarta, you can find incredible women who uphold the tradition of jamu. Every day they make their elixirs and pack it onto the back of their bikes to sell throughout the city. Medicine on wheels!

Turmeric lattes. Detox shots. Adaptogen tonics. The modern wellness aisle is crowded with new ideas, but most of them aren’t new at all.

Take jamu, Indonesia’s 1,200+ year old herbal tradition. Built on balance, plant medicine, and daily ritual, jamu is an ancestral wellness system that modern culture is only now beginning to rediscover.

Jamu is more than just the OG turmeric shot. At DrinkFolks, we’re not here to just reimagine jamu. We’re here to remember it.

Jamu: A Wellness System Rooted in Community

Jamu isn’t just about ingredients — it’s about ritual, seasonality, and relationship to nature. In Indonesia, jamu is passed down through families, made by hand, and shared as part of daily life — especially among women.

It’s a living tradition. Not a trend.

What Wellness Culture Gets Wrong

Modern wellness often isolates healing into productivity: biohacks, hustle recovery, individual optimization. But jamu teaches something softer: healing is cyclical, slow, and often communal.

Instead of 30-day cleanses → daily sips
Instead of synthetic boosts → root-based nourishment
Instead of perfection → presence

Bringing the Old into the New

At DrinkFolks, we bottle this tradition with respect and realness. That means sourcing authentic ingredients, working with community producers, and refusing to dilute the power of ancient plants for mass-market trends.

Jamu isn’t new. But the way we bring it into our world — with storytelling, reverence, and community — is the kind of wellness we believe in.