When I’m not juicing at home, I love grabbing a fresh juice to go at any one of Hong Kong’s many juice stalls. It’s more out of convenience  than anything, because the juices from the street are not exactly the highest quality.

It might sound snobby, but it’s for good reason: if you take a closer look, Hong Kong street juicers usually use low grade fruits and vegetables that are not organic, which are spun through centrifugal juicers instead of masticating (aka. slow) juicers.

What’s the difference? As Christina pointed out, centrifugal juicers use a fast-spinning metal blade to separate the juice from the pulp, often heating up the enzymes in the process and oxidizing the nutrients, whereas a slow juicer squishes the fruits and vegetables through a press without any heat to keep the nutrients in tact and yield more juice. (HuffPost)

So, imagine my surprise when I came to the end of See Cheung Street (the main cafe street) in Sai Kung and came across a stand with several slow juicers making five greens juice, beetroot juice, orange juice, sweet corn juice and more with only organic produce.

Sai Kung’s cold-pressed juice stall

The lady at the stall immediately gave us little cups to sample each juice, telling us that 500-ml bottles were HK$40 and single cups of juice were HK$20. The five greens juice (cucumber, celery, bitter melon, green apple and green bell pepper) was quite light and cooling, while the beetroot juice included apples and passion fruit for a tropical twist.

Check out all that organic produce!

I didn’t end up buying any juice from her but a few steps away, another stall was making fresh coconut milk (also from a slow juicer/blender) and had smaller bottles of beetroot juice for sale. TIP: Don’t buy them from her because it’s actually apple juice coloured with a bit of beetroot juice, whereas the first lady’s juice was the real deal (lesson learned!).

No centrifugal action here

If Sai Kung has slow juicers, so should the city! As far as I know, none of the juices you get at Mana, Mix or Cafe O are made with slow juicers, so you might as well get the street versions for half the price.

Of course, fresh juice is better than no juice, but I can’t wait till Hong Kong gets something like The Juice Truck in Vancouver — a mobile cold-pressed juice truck serving up made-to-order juices, smoothies and other goodies. Mmmm…