Yuja-cha!

I just came home from shabu shabu-ing with 2 highschool friends, and made a food discovery -yuja tea! This shabu restaurant is Korean-owned, hence the Korean name.

In Japanese and English, the fruit used is known as 'yuzu'. From googling and reading up about the beverage on the know-it-all source that is wikipedia, I now know that the tea is a traditional Korean beverage that is consumed particularly in Winter, to comfort and to remedy colds; sort of like what salty cumquat tea is to the Chinese, and what lemon and honey is to everyone else. I don't like drinking honey and lemon tea or cumquat, but I actually quite enjoyed the yuja tea. But maybe because I had it ice cold, and found it rather refreshing. My friend had the hot version, and she didn't like hers as much. I'm sure the benefits are still there with the cold version, so I will stick with that, I think. So anyway, the benefits are derived from the fact that the fruit is jam-packed with vitamin C - according to google sources. The fruit is also used in perfumery, alcohol, desserts, sauces, and what have you.

Now, as the fresh fruit is not readily available, most people use the honey and sugar syruped version in glass jars at Korean grocers (apparently you have to mix it with sugar anyway, if preparing the fresh fruit, as the fruit itself is quite bitter/sour). I'm sure the tea I had before was made from this marmalade-looking preparation.

While googling about this product, I came across a website where the blogger tried using yuja-cha paste in a chiffon cake, in a cheesecake, and in a savoury sauce (http://www.anncoojournal.com/2011/04/yuja-korean-honey-citron-tea-cheesecake.html). Although I don't think I'll try any of these ideas, I'm inspired to use this ingredient to create my own unique dishes. So without further ado, it's off to shower now, facial mask (if I can stay awake) and then off to the Korean grocers tomorrow morning to get my hands on a bottle of these!