The SoCal heatwave got me real thirsty the other day so I picked some sugarcane from my backyard. These sugarcane have been in the ground less than a year and are not fully ripe but they are sweet enough that I had to dilute them down with ice or else it would have been too sweet. The only variety that was not sweet was the Yellow Gal, the thickest sugarcane. I was thinking it would be the sweetest because it was the thickest but that was definitely not the case.
The three varieties in the picture are Yellow Gal, Green and Red Striped, Asian Black. There is only 1-3 feet of usable cane so far and the upper portions close to the leaves are not sweet. The Yellow Gal was not sweet at all and had a slightl wheat grass taste but not nearly as much chlorophyll flavor, I think this is because it is very under ripe and had no sweetness to it. This Yellow Gal was so thick that I had to cut it in half lengthwise in order to juice it with my manual crank sugarcane juicer.
The Green and Red Striped was very sweet with excellent flavor and it was also very easy to juice with my manual crank sugarcane juicer because it was not as thick as YG. The juice was very refreshing with high mineral taste. I mean this in a good way. It tasted like it picked up a lot of minerals and salts from the soil.
The Asian Black was also extremely sweet but the flavor is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum compared to the Green and Red Stripe. The flavor of the Asian Black is very clean with absolutely no mineral or salt taste to it whatsoever. It tastes very pure as if it were triple filtered through charcoal, very hard to explain but if you were to taste the Asian Black next to the Green and Red Stripe, you would absolutely know what I'm talking about.
I still have Purple and San Diego Yellow sugarcane that I have not sampled yet, at least not ones that I have grown myself. Of all the varieties I have tried so far, San Diego Yelliw is my favorite because it has a balanced taste, kind of between Asian Black and Green and Red Stripe. I also like it because it oxidizes the slowest meaning that when you juice it, it takes much longer for this variety to start turning dark compared to other varieties which typically turn dark immediately. The downside to San Diego Yellow is that so far, it is the thinnest growing variety. This is actually a good thing if you have a manual juicer but it is bad if plan on peeling and chewing.
I need to wait another year or two so that I have all varieties ripe at the same time so that I can do a proper side by side comparison. I didn't take Brix readings but I'll try to get numbers next time I juice. I don't think my Refractometer goes high enough, I'll have to pick up another one that is in the proper range.
Simon
