It's a good product, overall. I use it to make soup with longan, white fungus, and walnuts a traditional Chinese remedy to improve my health. But only later I realized that there was instructions at the back of the bag saying that the dates have to be washed before cooking! Well, anyway.... I 'll just be careful from now on. It's a good product for cooking, but if you want something good for a snack too, this is probably not the best choice.
As stated in the "Legal Disclaimer" for this item at the time of this writing, the product I received is not exactly as the description says. But that's ok, I really just wanted to try them since I'm thinking of planting some jujube trees. I just want an idea of the taste.
They arrived quickly enough, in 5 days or so. The brand I got is "Golden Lion." 12 oz, resealable bag (nice.)
From the back of the bag (paraphrased)...
User Warnings:
1.Raw foodsPlease cook before serving.
2.Do not eat as a snack! Proper handling instructions:
.1.Wash dates with regular tap water for at least 5 minutes.
.2.Place cleaned dates in a pot of boiling water and cook for 15 minutes or until soft.
.3.After dates are cooked, throw in your favorite meats and/or vegetables and let simmer for 35-40 minutes.
Well, great. I didn't want to do all of that, I just wanted to try the things! So I washed them in tap water and tried one. They're sort of like a combination between a raisin and a date, with a taste of spiced apple thrown in. Size-wise they're sort of between a date and a raisin too, with dark red skin and light brown flesh. The pits aren't as big as I expected, being smaller than most olive pits. My girlfriend got a pointy pit and poked her tongue though, so be careful of that.
I was worried they wouldn't taste good, or the pits would be really big and there would be no flesh on them. But they actually taste pretty damn good to me, if a little unusual for American food. Especially considering they're apparently not for snacking. And they have a pretty good pit-to-meat ratio. No bugs, no black spots.
They do have teeny tiny stems, though. I just pluck them off before eating.
I bet they'd be even better in soup.
Oh, and nowhere on the bag does it mention anything about being organic. But I was prepared for that, after reading the other reviews and the disclaimer.
So in all, if you've never tried jujubes and you just want a taste, I'd say go for it. If you want to cook with jujubes, definitely go for it. But if you seriously want an organic snack, I'd look somewhere else.
Now if I can just talk my roommates into letting me plant those trees...
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The product looks very nice. Haven't cook yet, but seems like good products to cook as soup or other things.
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The jujube sent to me was not in the same package as seen on the item's page, which belongs to another brand "Changsi(in Chinese:长思大红枣)". The jujubes are in good conditions and their taste is not bad. Pits are a bit larger than I thought, compared with most jujubes in China.
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I bought these to see if my family likes them. We are planning on buying jujube trees this winter. I wanted to buy good quality fruit as well as organic etc.. since this is the only type of food we buy. Description said these are organic and raw (dried at low temps etc..). It was not organic and not raw, nowhere on the package there was even a hint of it being organic or raw, so it was just a dried fruit from china with who knows what added! In fact it said it wasn't raw "washed and sterilized" (it was worded a bit differently: grammatically incorrect, but I don't remember exactly how... something like washed and sterilization....). Taste was ok. I tried a couple. The rest ended up in a trash. If you just want jujube fruit, it was ok. If you want organic jujube, look elsewhere.
I bought this wine kit because I wanted to find a nice white wine that I could let age a while before I gave it to any family or friends. When this wine was complete, it tasted a little thin to me. However, 3.5 months of aging brought it a lot way and it tastes wonderful. I highly recommend this kit if you just want to make a batch of wine to age and enjoy down the road. I can only imagine how good it will taste in another 6 months to a year.
