Affected by the warm winter last year and the rain since this spring, the National Lychee Longan Industry Technology Research and Development Center predicts that the output of lychee in Guangdong will be reduced by more than half compared with last year. Although the yield of freshly picked lychees has declined, another "frozen lychee" has appeared in the public eye. Recently, the topic of "300 tons of lychees that have been frozen for 10 months in Guangdong has been thawed and listed" has rushed to the top of the hot search on many social media platforms, and "frozen sleeping lychees" has aroused heated discussions among netizens for a while. In the eyes of "lychee fans", can frozen lychees replace fresh lychees and make up for the decline in yield?
In the past few days, the reporter visited the city's supermarkets and found that at present, Feizixiao from Hainan has been listed one after another, and many citizens are buying lychees, and they generally have reservations about the novelty of "frozen sleeping lychees". "Cantonese people still like to eat fresh, and if the price of frozen lychee is right, you can consider trying it, but I feel that it should not be able to replace the taste of fresh lychee." Ms. Chan, a citizen, said that her family of four loves to eat lychees, and the taste of lychees is the primary consideration for her and her family.
In fact, freshly marketed lychees can only be kept fresh for a week or two under normal circumstances, and even if they are put in the refrigerator, they will quickly turn black in color and deteriorate in taste. It is understood that focusing on the problem of lychee preservation, the lychee preservation and processing research team of the Processing Institute of the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences has successfully broken through the ultra-low temperature freeze-dormant lock-off technology, and realized the technology transformation in the enterprise to create a fresh lychee product - "Frozen Sleep Lychee". According to Liang Qinru, a member of the party group and deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, if traditional freezing methods are used, large ice crystals will form in lychees, resulting in cell damage, poor taste, loss of nutrients, and a great decline in quality.
The core innovation of the new technology is to improve the heat exchange efficiency at minus 35°C or below, adjust the formation path and morphological distribution of ice crystals when lychee is frozen, so that the ice crystals formed in lychee become smaller, dense and evenly distributed, so that the cells are in a dormant state. Using this technology, after the fresh lychees are picked, the team immediately carries them with a series of treatments, such as rapid pre-cooling, antibacterial and color protection, precise packaging, quick-freezing and fresh-locking, and freeze-storage and preservation, so as to achieve annual storage. After the lychee is thawed with this technology, the color can be as bright red as a fresh lychee, the flesh is still crystal clear, and the nutritional quality can be maintained at more than ninety%.
So how to distinguish "frozen lychee" from fresh lychee?
First of all, you can look at the price, the reporter searched for "frozen sleeping lychee" on the e-commerce platform, and found that the price of a pound is between 40-79 yuan, and the price of "frozen sleeping lychee" sold by different manufacturers is different, but it is generally much higher than the price of fresh lychees sold on the market.
Secondly, you can look at the storage environment of lychees. Lychee must be stored at minus 18°C, and it is recommended to eat it within 30 minutes after thawing, and the packaging bag also has a clear label of "Frozen Sleep" food. Finally, looking at the pulp, the frozen lychee is a pure white opaque pulp, while the fresh lychee is a pale yellow transparent pulp. When not completely thawed, Lychee is more like lychee ice cream, with a creamy and creamy taste. When completely thawed, it has another flavor, sweet and rich, closer to the taste of fresh lychee.
Text, pictures, video/Foshan News Media Center reporter Deng Jiahui Liu Yun