Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, July 15 – Last week, when we were at the supermarket in the next town, we bought this drink to try, but it’s not something we see a lot, it is different from the usual supermarket stock. Leah and I like studying the unusual drinks in the Chinese supermarkets :-)This one is white fungus and bird’s nest. Both ingredients are popular in Traditional Chinese Medicine, however, bird’s nests are extremely expensive, so for the low price we paid for this drink, I doubt there is more than a minute trace, if any, actually in this can! It was listed last in the ingredients. Edible bird’s nests are made by swiftlets and are made from the bird’s saliva! Quoting this from online: “At as much as $4,500 per pound, edible birds' nests are among the most expensive foods on the planet.” There are different varieties, so it runs between about $1,000-5,000 usd per pound. Other information called white fungus “the poor man’s bird’s nest” because it supposedly has many of the same healing properties for a small fraction of the cost. After opening the drink and tasting it today, it was mostly sugar! Basically sugar water with white fungus! You could see the pieces of white fungus in it. It didn’t taste bad, but it was much too sweet for me!