"grass jelly" news and stories

I swear Asians have the weirdest things to drink. This was first made clear to me when I would take a small can of an orange juice-like drink called Sac Sac to school. The drink has lots of the tiny mandarin orange pulp sacs, which is really not all that different from fresh squeezed range juice that hasn't been strained of its pulp, but the name, Sac Sac was weird. I won't even go into the grape drink that has peeled whole grapes in it that feels like I'm eating eyeballs.

Now comes Grass Jelly Drink, which I tried for the first time a couple of days ago and am now thoroughly addicted. Grass jelly (in Chinese: sh?o xi?n c?o) is an Asian food made by boiling a special type of grass in the mint family with potassium carbonate. As the liquid cools, it gels. The jelly is cut into tiny cubes and mixed with a sweet, flavored liquid to make the drink. Mine was litchi flavored.

The only bad thing about the drink is that the grass jelly sinks to the bottom of the can. You have to shake it before you drink it, but unless you pound the whole thing in one big gulp from the can, the grass jellies sink back to the bottom. 

I've also seen grass jelly as an "add on" in boba teas.