Asparagus Juice
Most juice comes from fruits, although we have seen some made from seeds, flowers, and herbs. But here's a vegetable that I never thought would be made into a drink: asparagus juice.
When I was a kid growing up I hated asparagus. We had it growing in our garden and my mom would make it steamed about once a week and force everyone to eat it. It wasn't until I started to like dipping it in horseradish that it became edible. While it's ok in limited portions these days, asparagus will not show up on my plate unless it's a free side at a restaurant that I don't know about.
So, I don't know that they were thinking when they decided to squeeze the juice out of (what seems like) a very un-juicy vegetable to make asparagus juice. Read More >
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.
