April 1, 2007
Ask and You Shall Receive!
In 1991, I took a trip to Fujian province, China, with some colleagues to tour some hibiscus fields outside Xiamen city. I had let our hosts know that we were interested in learning about new ingredients for our teas, and they brought a selection of botanicals along for us to taste while traveling in the car. One of the herbs we sampled was Chinese blackberry leaves grown in the mountains outside of Guilin in Guangxi province.
We had been using blackberry leaves from Eastern Europe for many years, so I wasn’t terribly impressed with this “new” ingredient…until I tasted it. I simply couldn’t believe how sweet it was! I was absolutely convinced that the leaves had some sort of sweetener added to them, but I was assured that the sweetness of these leaves was naturally occurring. The blackberry leaves we were already using gave a nice body to our teas, but they didn’t have the sweetness of the Chinese variety.
I brought some of the leaves home and they were a huge hit! Over the years we’ve experimented with the leaf, and have found that leaving it on the bush longer lets the natural sweetness really develop. Many of our favorite fruit flavors like Black Cherry Berry, True Blueberry and Tangerine Orange Zinger® Herb Teas now contain Chinese blackberry leaves, and we still buy them from the same farm in Guangxi.
Another Sweet Find!
In 1995, I took another trip to China—this time to Canton. After dinner one evening, we were strolling through an open-air herb market in Canton—an exciting experience in itself—when I almost literally stumbled upon a burlap bag filled with small brown orbs. I picked one up and held it under my nose, and was rewarded with a deliciously sweet scent that reminded me of maple or toffee.
I asked my hosts what the food was, and I was told that it was Lo Han Guo (pronounced low-hahn-kwoh), a fruit used to mask the sometimes bitter taste of medicinal potions or extracts formulated to soothe the throat. It grows in the mountains around the town of Guilin on long vines that must be propped up with wooden poles, forming a beautiful green canopy.
I had never seen nor heard of Lo Han Guo before, and the enticing aroma convinced me that it was worth taking a closer look. I bought a small quantity of the fruit and took it back to the hotel, where I cracked it open. The sweet scent was even stronger and more delicious, and I knew I had to bring some back to the States!
Back at home in Boulder, we were working on developing our Dessert Teas. The Lo Han Guo had a naturally sweet flavor that really perked up our English Toffee tea, and was an immediate hit. We decided to purchase a large quantity of the fruit, and as far as I know, we were the first U.S. company to use Lo Han Guo as an ingredient in our products. Some time after our English Toffee Dessert Tea hit the shelves, we noticed the fruit being used in medicinal extracts for calming coughs and sore throats.
