The drink has many names in various languages—mahua sharab, mahuli, ippasara, irukkall, mandh, or simply mahua. About 90 per cent of the crop goes into making liquor. The mahua tree, vital to central india's tribal communities, blooms beautifully in spring and offers much more than aesthetic appeal. Its flowers, collected at dawn, are a crucial. Mahua is revered as a “tree of life” among tribal communities and is considered sacred. Its flowers, leaves, fruits, seeds, and even fruit shells are used in everyday tribal. Mahua trees are an anchor in the tropical dry deciduous forests of states like madhya pradesh, jharkhand, chhattisgarh, and parts of maharashtra. They grow at altitudes. The mahua tree, or madhuca longifolia is grown in the wooded plains of western, central and eastern india, especially where tribes like the santhals, gonds, mundas and. For adivasi families in rayagada, collecting mahua flowers (mahula or ମହୁଲ in odiya) during summer is a crucial livelihood opportunity, and an essential part of the cultural fabric.

Mahua flowers are highly valued by tribal communities for their nutritional and medicinal properties, as well as their use in the production of a fermented drink called mahua.

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