Starting early spring it is very common to see people(generally all older) out and about hunting/gathering various greens, roots, nuts, mushrooms and berries. The campsite that we rent for our nature school program just so happens to have a bush with a bounty of edible berries that the kids and leaders snack on from time to time in early summer. With some campers help one morning I was able to gather a reasonable amount of berries and decided it was time to try making some juice Korean Style.
After bringing the berries home I did the following...
1) Clean berries.
2) Prepared an air tight container to use for the juice.
3) Layered berries and sugar in equal amounts until the berries were all in the container.
4) Let sit on my shelf for about a month
5) Strain out the pulp/seeds
6) Mixed Juice syrup with cold water on a 1:1 ratio.
7) Add ice and enjoy
Home made juice or wine as it could be termed is a common way to make a special drink here in Korea for tea or especially for a cool refreshing drink during the hot summer! It is also common practice to use citrus fruits for this same purpose and using the same method. Depending on what you want it is possible to adjust the length of shelf life and its common in Korea to wait three months before serving. Omija Tea is one of the more popular versions of this recipe here in Korea and defiantly takes the whole tree months to be ready for consumption. Depending on the type of fruit and how long it takes for the juices to go from inside to outside the fruit is a good indicator for readiness.
