I had a few great meals in the imperial city of Beijing this week. Beijing is always good for Peking Duck (recommend Da Dong - leaner cuts than average) and great Chinese food (recommend South Silk Road for Yunnan, or this no name place in the financial district right across from the Camway building for Dumplings), and this trip did not disappoint. However, the highlight will go to some surprisingly good lychees I managed to come upon. Given lychees originated in China (and India), and this was Beijing after all, no surprise that these were of exceptional quality. But the world is getting to a point where the best Peking Duck in Beijing is fractionally better than in the Bay Area. Lychees though orders of magnitude are. And so the lychees in Beijing were a pure unexpected delight.
The problem is one of supply chain logistics. Supply drives experience (and taste preference). Experience drives demand. Having just paid $6 a pound for the start of season (and not great) cherries from Chile at my neighborhood produce store this weekend, its clearly not an issue of distance or economics. Lychees (particularly the non genetically engineered delicious ones) have thin skins. And they crack if not handled properly. The best lychees come out of hot tropical climates. And of course, once the skin cracks in a non climate controlled environment, its over. This is the problem with the best lychees in the world. In my mind these are from Muzzafarpur in Bihar, India. My guess is that 75% of these top of the world lychees get consumed within days and hundreds of kilometers of where they are grown. The other 25% rot on their ambitious way somewhere (anyone who has taken a train anywhere in Bihar will understand why, naturally this is before you even get to question of transport refrigeration). I was lucky to enjoy those lychees growing up in India.
I also clearly remember the best lychee experience I have had. We were in East Queensland in Australia and driving around, we happened upon a lychee farm. Stopping to discover, there we tasted three different varieties, all harvested within the last forty eight hours and properly refrigerated in large bins in their farm barn. Standing outside that barn looking out to the lychee orchard, with the smell of the soil in the air on a hot summer day, and discussing lychees and local farming issues and techniques with the 80-some year old farmer and his wife, while tasting cold, juicy and incredibly fresh lychees - that moment was like no other.
I wonder then, is it OK that the supply chain logistics haven't quite caught up to this one little corner ? I remember my father describing drinking fresh (non pasteurized) milk within minutes of milking when he was growing up and remembering how different and better it tasted. In contrast, I cant tell the difference in 2% milk whether I am in New Zealand or Switzerland - and much to the dismay of my wife - even if its organic or not; it all tastes the same. And so as I look to my sons, who grow up in a world different from one I grew up in, and see them go from Hawaiian papayas to Californian strawberries as easily as opening the refrigerator door, I wonder if they will be able to look back in their life - and like me, remember clearly the day they ate the lychees in Muzzafarpur or stood on that farm in Queensland - or came upon a pleasant discovery in Beijing ?
