Sea Buckthorn
This past week, when I was in the Vine Ripe market, looking for new and rare foods to try, I ran across a fruit juice from Armenia called sea buckthorn juice. Very little of the label was in English but I'm not entirely sure what language(s) they were as the alphabet didn't appear to be true Cyrillic. It seemed more stylized. The cluster of small yellow berries illustrated on the label of the box of juice was different from anything else I recall having tried, so I got one one-liter box of juice.
Today I tried it. The juice in the container was similar to that we got by running Panama's nance through a blender. The taste was much milder than nance, though, with a hint of something like pineapple. It was quite pleasant.
I looked up the plant on the Internet. For something I've never heard of, it seems to be quite a miracle plant. At its most basic it is used to control soil erosion. Its easy propagation from cuttings makes it economical for this purpose. Depending on location, it may grow as a low bush no more than a meter tall or a tree up to thirty meters high, with berries ranging in color from yellow through orange to red. The leaves are good for making tea. The fruit has natural sunscreen capabilities and is useful in cosmetics as well as in a variety of foods and medicines.
The Chinese have been concentrating on the medical applications of the plant. The Russians have been using the plant in their space program, as food and in other applications. Canada has been planting them on their plateau and have developed a European market for the fruit.
Comments (3)
And as soon as America can figure out how to turn it into wads of cash we'll be using it too!
Interesting blog. I am very impressed with the things the Chinese do with therapeutic uses of plants. We could learn a lot from them.
Where does it get its name?
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