JUNIPER
JUNIPER
Castilian:
French:
Genièvre.
Dutch Genever.
All of these names came from the word gin, an
alcoholic
drink flavored with
berries
Junipero
.
INTRODUCTION:
A
tradition claims that the fruits of
juniper
always be taken in odd number. Thus, the half - dozen really consists of 7 units, and the dozen, 11, and that 13 is avoided on the grounds of ill omen.
Sprig of
juniper
berries
with their false green to the right, detail of
a
female
plant with its ripe fruit, Called nebrinas. Stop being harvested, the nebrinas must be completely black. Both infuse chewed as presenting
a
broad range of therapeutic properties.
The fruits of
juniper
have fascinated since ancient alchemists and herbalists to, as raw, boiled or dried have stopped cure various ailments and, in recent centuries, seems to produce one of the best - known
alcoholic
beverage, gin.
FEATURES:
It is
a
small tree that often presents bushy appearance between one and two meters high. It
has
needle - shaped leaves, grouped in threes, colored green with
a
white line which crosses the lower side. There are male plants and
female
plants, the latter are the most interested, for the properties of fruits, called nebrinas, which takes three years to
mature
: fake
berries
are small one centimeter in diameter, green at first,
but
that is going through dark
purple
and black with reaching the bluish glow in the ripe fruit. Bittersweet taste, resinous, its
flavor
is similar to
cinnamon
.
LOCATION:
Lives in temperate regions and cooler in the northern hemisphere, both in Europe and Asia and in North
America
. In the Pyrenees, is up to 2, 500 m above sea level, in forests of beech,
oak
or
pine
.
ACTIVE:
The essence of the terpenes in
rice
is the fruit, such as pinene or juneno. It
has
also juniperina, an astringent substance.
MEDICINAL PROPERTIES:
A1
juniper
has
been attributed
a
multitude of virtues: it is gout,
Carmine
.
sudorific
, diuretic, emenagogo, guard against
arteriosclerosis
.
COLLECTION:
The nebrinas must be
mature
, and since it takes three years to
mature
, distinguish the ripe fruit of more than two years by their color, to be totally black. The best time is fall, when it is gone and the flowers and fruits start to appear young.
APPLICATIONS AND USES:
Can be used in infusion: about seven nebrinas fresh for
each
cup, sweetened with honey. However, in order to benefit tote mind the properties of
juniper
, we can take the nebrinas
d
as if they were candy,
but
remember that they have always eaten in odd number of (5 to 7 after lunch and dinner) Or by hand, the
Juniper
has
a
great Licorera imported in the industry, as the nebrina provide the raw material stops the production of gin.
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