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posted by
martyb
on Monday November 19 2018, @12:57PM
from the all-that-glitters-is-not-natural-diamond dept.
from the all-that-glitters-is-not-natural-diamond dept.
The South China Morning Post writes that the dominant diamond player De Beers is reacting badly to the arrival of large numbers of good, tiny, lab-grown diamonds. The synthetics challenge the widely-promoted assertion that diamond prices only go up. However, labs are now able to produce chemically identical gem-quality stones, indistinguishable by the naked eye from mined diamonds, in quantities pushing 200k carats of diamonds per month. Synthetic diamonds still only account for %1 of rough diamond sales globally, but that is expected to expand to between 7.5% to 15% by 2020.
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China's Lab-Grown Diamonds Look Good
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rich on Monday November 19 2018, @09:21PM (3 children)
They do wasabi, too.
If you like sushi, you'll be familiar with that green stuff served with it. But the thing is, even if called so, it's not wasabi. If you're lucky, it will have one percent of wasabi content, with the remainder being horseradish, green colour, and fillers. The pure stuff (sometimes called "hon-wasabi") is seriously expensive. Or maybe it's not so expensive, but we get told the story that it only grows in running water at the slopes of Mt. Fuji under a silver moon during the cherry blossom season while geisha play the koto. Or so, but if it was cheaper than horseradish, we'd have none of that. The stuff I got in Germany, from supermarkets to Japanese-owned specialty shops had something between 0.6 and 2% wasabi content.
Recently, I tried out a new sushi place in town (run by Chinese). Routinely I checked the little "wasabi" sachet I got. 18%. Eighteen. BAM. With my little knowledge of Kanji I deciphered the sachet to read "Tian Peng", "Heavenly Phoenix". A little internet journey brought me to the manufacturer's site. There was no importer to Germany to be found, so that stuff must've been perfectly ... inofficial. Anyway, they had branches: one for "wasabi" and one for "bio-engineering". The wasabi branch had all sorts of packages on offer, including the pure stuff. The bio-engineering branch didn't detail as much, but what I took from it was that they must've had engineered an environment where that root happily grows far away from of Mt. Fuji. So there you go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @09:39PM
There is also wasabi grown in soil, but some people claim infrerior quality to those grown in streams. Maybe they are wasabi snobs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:41AM
Recently, I tried out a new sushi place in town (run by Chinese). Routinely I checked the little "wasabi" sachet I got. 18%. Eighteen. BAM. With my little knowledge of Kanji I deciphered the sachet to read "Tian Peng", "Heavenly Phoenix". A little internet journey brought me to the manufacturer's site. There was no importer to Germany to be found, so that stuff must've been perfectly ... inofficial. Anyway, they had branches: one for "wasabi" and one for "bio-engineering". The wasabi branch had all sorts of packages on offer, including the pure stuff. The bio-engineering branch didn't detail as much, but what I took from it was that they must've had engineered an environment where that root happily grows far away from of Mt. Fuji. So there you go.
Actually a Canadian, figured out how to cutivate wasabi [bbc.com]. So the restaurant's supplier or their supplier either licensed the method from him or just copied it. You need a lot of running water.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bootsy on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:00AM
I have been to several talks by ethnobotanist James Wong http://www.jameswong.co.uk/ [jameswong.co.uk]
Wasabi grows in a particular part of Japan that is damp and wet. James tells a story of being outside of a Japanese restaurant in England and picking up a wasabi plant that had self seeded outside the restaurant when they had throw out the left over bits, including the seeds.
It turns out that the UK has an excellent climate for growing Wasabi and that it would make financial sense to do so given the current costs. He often argues that growing potatoes at home is pointless as they are so cheap to buy from shops and it supports farmers if you purchase them from a shop. Growing Wasabi, yams etc makes far more sense in the UK as these are expensive with less supply.