Betel Nuts

Betel Nuts, Beatle Nuts, Beetle Nuts, Beato Nuts... (This could be a jingle.)

I've never heard or seen these until my trip to Taiwan. I got a chance to try out the betel nuts also known as "bin-lang" in Chinese. At first, I was hesitant to try it. One of my friends dared us to try it, so he went out to a street vendor and picked up a pack. My first impression was this can't be too bad. It's a green nut with a black thing in the middle and a leaf wrapped around it. I popped one in my mouth and noticed it had a semi-hard texture. After chewing it and chewing it, I noticed something was rubbing against my gums that did not feel right. It tasted like fibers and leaves. Next thing you know, all our mouths were bright orange. We looked ourselves in the mirror and just start laughing non-stop. It was pretty disgusting so we all rinsed our mouths thoroughly.

The next day my older cousin picked us up and I told him what happened. He laughed at us like we never novices. He said we bought the wrong ones and showed us to the right ones. The one he bought didn't have a leaf on the outside which was a lot better. We just sat in his beamer cruising up the mountains rotating a single cup for spitting. It was so tasty it made my mouth salivate. The spit came out a dark red instead of the bright orange. I got the light-head feeling after a minute of chewing.

There are different ways to make betel nuts and it varies by regions. The nuts itself come from a tree that looks like a coconut tree.

Check out a short documentary:


1st timer:


Betel Nut Girls:

The girls wear skimpy outfits selling betel nuts out of a booth.