The skin of a lime is also more delicate than that of a lemon, and if you scratch it, lo and behold! It smells like lime, not lemon!
Just out of curiousity, is there any distinction in Mandarin? I suspect not. I suspect to locals they’re all lEEmons.
When you go there, and speak to a Filipino/a, ask for “calamansi”. cah lah man see (Tagalog for lime, not lemon)
Li(2) Mu(3) or if you prefer Lie(2) Moo(3)
And just for your interest it’s apparently the same pronunciation and characters as the popular alcoholic drink ‘rum’, just to make things confusing. It’s a good job there is no alcoholic drink made from limes otherwise we’d be screwed when it came to ordering time.
Im not particularly anal about the citrus in my G&Ts. But where the f do you lot buy the tonic water?
RT Mart
City Super
Breeze Center
Jason’s
Drinks (or pretty much any liquor store worth its salt)
Most supermarkets have tonic water now, you’ll generally find it in the alcohol section though.
It used to be some local brand, but Schweppes seems to have bought them out.
Yellow and silver cans for Tonic Water, black and silver cans for Soda Water and red and silver for Ginger Ale.
If you pay more than NT$15-20 a can, you’re getting ripped off.
I’ve bought them for as little as NT$12 in Carrefour, but most places seem to stock them for about NT$15 now.
But yeah, some lime would be nice and besides, the local lemons are generally not as juice or flavourful as yellow lemons.
I do like the green oranges though…
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]Most supermarkets have tonic water now, you’ll generally find it in the alcohol section though.
It used to be some local brand, but Schweppes seems to have bought them out.
Yellow and silver cans for Tonic Water, black and silver cans for Soda Water and red and silver for Ginger Ale.
If you pay more than NT$15-20 a can, you’re getting ripped off.
I’ve bought them for as little as NT$12 in Carrefour, but most places seem to stock them for about NT$15 now.
But yeah, some lime would be nice and besides, the local lemons are generally not as juice or flavourful as yellow lemons.
I do like the green oranges though…[/quote]
Now I’m fairly sure there are still differences between the lemons found here and in Europe, but it is true that unripened lemons are green and it is also true that if you keep the Taiwan green ones for a time then they turn yellow. I’m not sure if Taiwan lemons left for a while will return the flavor you were hoping for however. They tend to be sweeter this way and less sour.
Well, I’ve had that happen twice, but they almost went bad by then (forgotten in the back of the fridge).
They’re still not quite the same, but I’m not really interested in paying 5x the price for imported lemons…
Oh well…
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]
Yellow and silver cans for Tonic Water[/quote]
Are those the wee pub-style cans or the 340 ml ones?
It’s 350ml ones, not the tiny little ones.
Like this one I just pulled out of the fridge, just for you Jimi!
Cheers, Mr Swede. I’m drooling! :lick:
The wet markets these days usually have limes, they call them “seedless lemons” I think. They’re not the usual green lemons, but thin-skinned green-fleshed limes.
When you go there, and speak to a Filipino/a, ask for “calamansi”. cah lah man see (Tagalog for lime, not lemon)[/quote]
Love you brother, but “calamansi” is a completely different fruit.
Yes, they’re used in drinks in the PIs, especially Tanduay and Coke
uhhhhhhhhhhh…what…what was I…oh yeah, yeah, right, Tanduay and Coke (preferably with ice chipped off a huge block using an itak bolo knife), but they’re way different from either lime or lemon…in their unripe form, which is how they’re often used in drinks, they’re like an incredibly bitter kumquat or summit.
I’ve frequently seen them in stores and markets here, too.
The juice is meant to be great for sore throats and laryngitis.
I’ll bet they’d be King Fuck Good in a GT, but not for the purist.
Of which the OP, His Grace the 8th Earl of Lucan can, to the best of my knowledge, be counted one.
I’ve heard that rumour.
Li(2) Mu(3) or if you prefer Lie(2) Moo(3)
And just for your interest it’s apparently the same pronunciation and characters as the popular alcoholic drink ‘rum’, just to make things confusing. It’s a good job there is no alcoholic drink made from limes otherwise we’d be screwed when it came to ordering time.[/quote]
Never heard this before. I thought lemons are Ning Meng and limes Qing Ning.
Not “li mu” (離母?) or “lie mu” (列母?), but “lai mu” (萊姆). Recently borrowed from English.
Lemons are “ning meng” (檸檬), a word perhaps borrowed from Portuguese centuries ago.
And calamansi (Citrofortunella microcarpa), though nice, are not limes; they have a lemon/orange flavor. And the thick-skinned seedless green lemons are not limes either; they’re lemons (cultivars of Citrus limon) - they have a lemon flavor.
Limes have a distinctive flavor that cannot be substituted by a lemon.
You’d think that given Taiwan’s proximity to SE Asia, kaffir limes would be available. I know you can get kaffir lime leaves here.
[quote=“Chris”]Not “li mu” (離母?) or “lie mu” (列母?), but “lai mu” (萊姆). Recently borrowed from English.
[/quote]
O.K. three cheers for the pinying king! :bravo: 
:bravo: 
Oh, and “rum” is 蘭姆 “lan mu”. Different from “lai mu”.
That’s what you get for asking 10 Taiwanese and getting the same answer each and every time. I remember over ten years ago when nobody knew the difference between England and United Kingdom. I kept referring to myself as United Kingdom person instead of English for a good year before someone finally could tell me the difference. Well done sir. I can now go round correcting everyone else now. “No, you fool, it’s not lime juice!” “It’s orchid juice damn it!” 