Thai Galingale Juice
I tried this juice at the floating market north of Bangkok, where it was in one of the stalls on the shore. There were several juices sitting there in large glass vats, and when I ordered the galingale juice (by pointing), the lady who owned the stand ladled a watery purple liquid into a cup full of ice. A Thai friend I was with explained that it's a purple flower called something like chun or chuan, I can't remember exactly. It's pretty difficult to explain the taste - it is similar to the roselle juice in that it kinda tastes like you're eating a flower. But other than than it's slightly sweet and refreshing over ice, great to cool off on the side of the river on a hot summer day in Thailand. Read More >
Hemp Seed Drink
This is hemp seed drink made by hung fook tong that I got in Hong Kong. it's got a weird separation of colors at the bottom, like a black & tan. But it says to shake well before drinking. After shaking it turns a uniform dark brown.
It smells like peanuts, and to my surprise is very watery. I thought it was going to be thick, but it's not at all. The taste reminds me of almond butter, and is very similar to the peanut drink. You can feel the little particles of ground-up nuts inside, and there's a slight aftertaste. Not a bad one, but the flavor lingers.
The doorman at the place I'm staying at said it's very good for your gut. He said if you're too hot, you can drink this to cool off. I think he means something to do with yin and yang, and Chinese medicine theory. So that must mean that the hemp seed drink is very "yin."
The health properties of hemp seed are pretty well known, but not very mainstream. I've seen it getting put into more and more food and drink products. Actually, hemp seed is the second ingredient here after water, so it must make up a good percentage of the total drink. There is also some almond added (I'm guessing for flavor).
I guess the only negative thing about this drink is that it separates really quickly, but that's also part of what makes it interesting.
Selfheal Fruit Juice – Xia Ku Cao
On my trip to Hong Kong, I picked up another weird drink that I had never seen before in a 7-11. Beside the fact that I didn't recognize the name 夏枯草, I could tell it was weird because of the drink's tagline: "Common selfheal fruit-spike drink." That doesn't give me any clue as to what's in it.
It tastes basically like raisin juice, but really a mild flavor. It's not sour or bitter at all, and not even too sweet. It just has a little raisin-y aftertaste, and is pretty refreshing cold. I think you could also drink it hot, like the jew's ear juice, and it might taste good that way too.
Checking my trusty Chinese translator, nciku.com, it seems I've never heard of this fruit before either. It's xia1 ku1 cao3 in Mandarin, ha6 fu1 chou2 in Cantonese, Prunella vulgaris in Latin, and "Self-heal" in English. Also known as Lance Selfheal in the US, it's a flowery plant that's harvested for it's medicinal properties. It supposedly can help to heal a whole bunch of diseases, and is being researched for cancer, AIDS, and diabetes treatments.
Getting to the label, here are the ingredients: purified water, cane sugar, common selfheal fruit-spike, dates, grosvenor momordica fruit, and liquorice root. If you're wondering what the second-to-last ingredient is, it's luo han guo, which is probably why this tastes a little similar to the luo han guo juice I tried in Thailand.
The xia ku cao juice has no preservatives or artificial colorings, and based on the ingredients it sounds like it's really good for you. It tastes good too.
Luo Han Guo Juice
Imagine my excitement when I saw a juice stand at a market in Thailand. Lo Han Kao juice was one of the options. This is a dark brown juice of some fruit I have never heard of. It tastes like chinese plum or date, and is pretty good. I wish I got a picture of the juice rather than just the sign (which didn't turn out great anyway), but it looked just like a dark brown iced tea, served with ice. It is sweet and supposedly good for your skin too. It's also sometimes spelled as Luo Han Guo, which I think might be the Mandarin Chinese version of the name.
According to Wikipedia, other names for this weird fruit are arhat fruit, monk's fruit, la han qua, and even a longevity fruit. It's used in Chinese medicine, mainly as a sweetener and is even used to create a sugar substitute because it is so sweet. But is also said to help with some illnesses such as heat stroke, larynx infection, cough, and diabetes. I can't vouch for any of these "cures," all I can say is that the juice does taste pretty good.
Quinoa Gold
Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) is all the craze in the health food markets recently. It's a South American grain that was called the "Mother Grain" by ancient Incas, and used to be more valuable than gold. These days it's still expensive, but usually cooked similar to rice, or made into a pasta. It's incredibly healthy for you, and tastes pretty good too. That is, until somebody decided to make a drink out of it. Read More >
