It's funny how the direction of a post goes. I started off writing a travel post but ended up writing a post about some natural traditional Taiwanese produce. I'm going to introduce you to some potential superfoods, all suitable for vegans. And, if it becomes a fad one day, or even the new craze, just remember you heard about it here on Hive first!
TAI PING OLD STREET
Before I dive into the superfoods, let me show you where I went. That was back in 2018, I visited the longest suspension bridge in Taiwan (back then, not anymore). Afterwards, I went to the nearby traditional village for a wander around the Old Street. Because of the suspension bridge, this is a busy tourist area, particularly during holidays and weekends. Many locals setup stalls selling their home made produce.
HIGH MOUNTAIN TEA
Taiwan is famed for its green tea, particularly those grown high up in the mountain. Some farmers harvest, produce and sell their own tea directly to the public and there were quite a few around this region. This sign says the farmer sells his own tea and it has won some sort of award.
The tea sold here is high mountain Oolong winter tea. In my previous post, I mentioned that high mountain tea is tea grown at altitudes over 1000 meters above sea level. The purity of the air quality and the natural precipitation produces some of the best green tea in Taiwan. Oolong is a type of green tea. Winter tea is normally harvested around October to November but is considered not as superior as the spring tea which is harvested from March to May. You can see the farmer is keen to point out the photo behind him when his tea got the award.
He had three types of oolong green tea, the one on the left is the award winning one. They all sell for £45/$65 per 600g. There were tasters available but I didn't try any as the price seemed a bit high for winter tea.
SNOW FUNGUS AND AI YU
Here are two different products that have similar properties but prepared in different ways.
Snow fungus (the ones on the left) may be familiar to westerners, particularly if you're into fungi foraging. They have a lot of medicinal benefits, such as low in calorie, contains selenium which helps to prevent cancer, has antioxidant properties and helps prevent inflammatory and diabetic. On top of that, it contains high collagen content, so is especially popular with female as it's good for your skin and helps prevent ageing. What's not to love about it!
The snow fungus itself is tasteless. The texture is slightly crunchy with a nice bite but will become soft and a jelly like when cooked for too long. Normally we use it to make a sweet dessert soup with red dates, lotus seeds. All these ingredients have soothing properties and help to nourish our body.
The other ingredient on the right is Ai Yu. It is from a plant known as climbing fig or creeping fig, and is found predominantly in Taiwan, but sometimes also in other Asian countries with a similar climate. Apparently, it's also been found in Florida.
Climbing fig is a variety of the mulberry family, and Ai Yu is made from the dried seeds which you scratch out from the fruit. This image was taken from another hiking trip in Taiwan when I helped a stall owner to scrap out the seeds. The seeds are low in cholesterol and promote metabolism, but like snow fungus, is tasteless but refreshing. The other similar property it has with snow fungus is its jelly like. To make Ai Yu, you put the seeds in a cloth and rub them in water to release the pectin. Then you wait for the water to set.
That's the bucket of ai yu on the right below. Both these drinks are very refreshing and great on a hot day especially when you go hiking. Rock sugar is added to the snow fungus to make a sweet drink, whilst natural flavouring like lemon juice, honey, passion fruit is added to the ai yu jelly to make a refreshing drink. Just writing about it makes my mouth water now.
BLACK SUGAR AND AGED GINGER DRINK
This has become one of my favourite winter drink in Taiwan since I discovered it. These blocks were made by the stall owner's sister using natural organic ingredients. Black sugar is its literal Chinese name, I think the English equivalent would be natural cane sugar, but I'm not 100% sure. Aged ginger is root ginger that is grown to over a year old. It has more fibre compared to normal root ginger and a much more intense flavour. The aged ginger is thinly sliced and added to the black sugar which is cooked till it thickens to a syrup and eventually solidifies.
This particular black sugar and ginger tea had two additional ingredients. The first is longan, which translates to dragon eye. It comes from the same family as lychee. Longan has a hardish brown shell, white flesh and black stone, and a sweet fragrant flavour. You can eat them fresh, or dry and preserve them. Dried longan becomes black and intensely sweet. The second ingredient is red dates. Westerners will perhaps be a bit more familiar with this. Both longan and red dates are popular Chinese herbal medicines, and helps with relaxation, and tonify the blood.
The Chinese believe when female menstruates, their body becomes colder and hence weaker. Drinking this keeps them stronger and warmer, and helps with blood circulation reproducing the blood lost. That aside, it's also a great drink for the winter as the aged ginger has warming properties. You just add hot water to a cube and it will disintegrate.
We also use this to make a sweet tonic dessert soup and add other ingredients to it. For example, the white fungus above, goji berries which has become a superfood in recent years or even sweet glutinous dumplings which is one of my favourite desserts. If this is the first time you've heard of black sugar and ginger drink, and you see it your local Chinese supermarket, I highly recommend you to try it out. Remember when goji berry became a superfood craze some years ago? Well, you heard about this from me here first!!!
DRIED DAIKON
Now for a savoury ingredient. Daikon is a root vegetable, a bit like carrot but longer and white. It has a similar texture to radish. It's used in many Asian cuisines including Japan and Korea. These ones are cut into strips and dried, till they become a bit rubbery. Normally I finely chop them to make an omelette, but you can also sprinkle it on top of tofu or fish and steam the dish. A popular Taiwanese dish uses them to make chicken soup.
Dried daikon can be kept for many years if kept in the right condition, and we're talking decades here!!! They turn black and shiny and are said to make a delicious soup. Normal, ie not aged dried daikon, are sometimes called a poor man's ginseng as they can help to relieve a cold and bad cough. Apparently, if children don't sleep well at night and always cries, drinking dried daikon tea helps to calm them.
POST SHOPPING HIKE
I couldn't resist not sharing some stunning views to close my post. After the walkabout down the Old Street, we went for a little hike around the beautiful tea fields. This area is on the other side of the mountain from my previous hike. If you want to see more of these stunning tea fields in Taiwan, checkout this post