Zena’s Ditakh is actually not a juice but a nectar, a distinction that's mysterious but seems to stem from FDA requirements: nectars sit somewhere between pure juices, which must be constituted without fillers or additives, and “fruit drinks,” which contain less than 25% pure juice by volume. This one bears a somewhat vegetal aftertaste, and a slightly chalky texture, even when mixed with seltzer. The fruit itself is similar to a tamarind, apparently, and their juices do in fact share a similar quality, both murky and mysterious, a little too husky for me to adequately enjoy as a sipping companion. Still, it serves as a delicious reminder of how many exciting foreign fruits still remain beyond our horizons, dangling delicately from their branches, just waiting to be juiced.
Long before I had the mental capacity to obsess over the terroir of various types of corn puffs and split hairs on specific tamal styles, I possessed a burning passion for juice. In addition to an early memory in which an anti-drinking-and-driving PSA sent me into what may have been my first fit of neurosis (I thought this was advertising a new law that somehow applied to car-seat sippy cup consumption), many of my fondest mealtime remembrances center around various Nectars of the Gods; my personal favorite was Five Alive, whose classy conglomeration of citruses reminded me of some powerhouse cartoon superhero combo. My only wish was that there could somehow be more types of juice, beyond standbys like apple, orange and grape. Turns out there were, and yet even as new superfruits keep popping onto the scene every few years, I still somehow routinely get a false sense that I’ve got a handle on the Kingdom of Edible Angiosperms, that we’re somehow reaching the end of what’s left to be discovered. This always proves false. I only recently discovered the Pomme Cythere, which I’ve still yet to eat in any form, and sure that process will continue to repeat itself until I am too infirm to browse bodega fridge racks. Last year, while roaming around East Harlem, I stumbled upon Ditakh, conveniently bottled by Zena, a Senegalese purveyor of fruit-based products that also sells juices derived from baobab, cashew apples, guanabana and saba.
Zena’s Ditakh is actually not a juice but a nectar, a distinction that's mysterious but seems to stem from FDA requirements: nectars sit somewhere between pure juices, which must be constituted without fillers or additives, and “fruit drinks,” which contain less than 25% pure juice by volume. This one bears a somewhat vegetal aftertaste, and a slightly chalky texture, even when mixed with seltzer. The fruit itself is similar to a tamarind, apparently, and their juices do in fact share a similar quality, both murky and mysterious, a little too husky for me to adequately enjoy as a sipping companion. Still, it serves as a delicious reminder of how many exciting foreign fruits still remain beyond our horizons, dangling delicately from their branches, just waiting to be juiced.
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