Hi All,
I have four prolific goji berry (Gou Qi Zi) plants in my garden.
Though the above was not the reason why I planted them (it is a side benefit), I planted them becasue they are drought tolerant and love high elevations and cold winters.
They are hard to pick and I can't keep up with them. Add to that, fresh goji's are not all that tasty. As a Keto, I can taste much diminished levels of sweet, which they have, but I can also taste much diminished levels of other things as well. So not all that tasty. (And I do adore my choke berries.)
I was beginning to think my goji were a mistake and I should contemplate pulling them out.
So now with winter upon us and the goji's are in full deciduous mode, I have nothing but bare sticks with a few thousand red berries on then. Very few fell off. So I got curious and picked a few and ate them. Hmmm. These are goji raisins. And I had heard that drying goji removed the bitter taste. It is true.
And they are a lot easier to pick as raisins too. (They are still a bit of a pain to remove all the stems though.) And oh holy molly the are yummy (at last).
My OMD (Oriental Medical Doctor) told me Gou Qi Zi's are in short supply so the price has sky rocketed. I told him if he lived closer, he could come harvest all he wanted. But he might not talk to me ever after that. They are a pain to harvest
$23/lb:
Is it me or is harvesting in the winter seem like cheating?
-T