aaabirdnest

Cheapest Guarantee

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We offer the cheapest wholesale white birdnest from Kalimantan. All our nest are hand washed and went through a 5 person cleaning chain to thoroughly clean it. Our nest are semi-dry picking, that is we don’t completely submerged in water during cleaning. This is to retain the nutrition value. This cleaning process is labour intensive, yet it completely preserve the natural taste of our birdnest.

Unlike other merchant whom purchase raw nest from farmer, we co-own our birdnest farm, therefore we can control the price and cut out any middlemen.  If you come across any that is cheaper than ours, 1) the nest could be from Java or Malaysia,  2) chemical is use during the cleaning process, 3) The bird nest bowl is molded using broken birdnest pieces.

 

 

Fresh edible bird's nest on wooden table.

How to Judge birdnest quality

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In the market, there are many fancy names for bird nest, like Jing Si Yan, or Imperial golden Bird nest, irregardless of their names, the key to the quality of the bird’s nest requires four indicators, the shape, color, cleanliness, and taste, not the fancy name.

Colour

Off White/slightly yellowish – more pure and without minerals from cave walls or farm walls, suitable for all, harvest from farm house.

Red- It is not red from the swiftlets’ blood, but from mineral absorption from certain caves, may be harmful rather than beneficial to human beings. they are actually due to minerals absorbed from the cave or from oxidation.

Classification by pre-cleaning quality

Type of edible bird’s nest prior to cleaning processing.

1) Premium (Aerodramus Fuciphagus) nests – Consist of 95% saliva and 5% feathers Provides the best nourishing effect to human bodies and has higher nutritional value than other categories bird nest. It produces aroma of eff white after cooking. Texture is smooth and soft.

2) Feather prime nests – Consist of 50% saliva and 50% feathers Effect is less prominent compared to saliva nest. Produces a crispier texture after stewing.

3) Grass nests – Consist of 5% saliva with grass and twigs Cheaper and thus welcomed by beginners. Textures is soft and smooth. Since the nests are built by saliva and grass, the nests contain little fiber of fresh grass.

 

Classification by Terrain

Edible bird’s nests are harvested from only two types of terrain shown below:

1) House Nest – Swifts build their nests inside a house located near to the sea where the environment is ideal and more controlled; therefore leading to fewer impurities and feathers in the bird’s nest.

2) Cave Nest – Swifts build their nests on mountain and rock caves and cliffs near the sea. The natural climate and environment affects the texture which tends to be stiffer and harder. But generally cave nests contain more foreign materials and feathers than house nests.

Classification by Shape and Size

Being a natural food product, edible bird’s nest come in many different shapes and sizes. Since it is created by Swiftlets, the shapes are organic and irregular. If you come across those are that are consistent in shape and size, most probably those nest are being molded into a bowl shape using broken nest.  Avoid those because chemicals may be use to mold them.

1) Cup – Whole nest that ranges from large to extra large size (top grade).

2) Triangle – Triangular shaped bird’s nest that are medium in size.

3) Strips – Broken pieces from whole bird’s nest,

4) Cakes – Tiny bird’s nest pieces that are shaped into the shape and size of a biscuit.

Bird Nest Classification by Country of Origin

Edible bird’s nest only originate from South East Asia.

1) Indonesia – Texture is smoother, softer and cleaner with fewer impurities as the majority of the nests are harvested from Indonesia’s house nests. Indonesia produces approximately 80% of the world’s supply.

Kalimantan –  Kalimantan birdnest is whiter and cleaner due to the rainy season and the farm house are located close to the sea. The price is also the highest among all the other region in Indonesia.

Java/Semarang – Java Nest is more yellowish in colour and contains more impurities like feathers and egg shell (which requires more effort in cleaning) because of the hot weather. 

 2) Thailand – These birds nests are thicker and firmer with higher density thus it requires more soaking and cooking time. As the majority of the nests are cultivated from the caves with a small production volume, the prices are generally higher.

3) Malaysia – With higher production of feather prime nests bird’s nest, bird’s nest from Malaysia are usually processed into cakes and prices are low.

4) Vietnam – These bird’s nest are higher quality and richer taste and aroma due to an ideal environment conditions for bird’s nest in Vietnam. Bird’s nest here are limited in supply and prices are higher.

 

Cooking Duration

There is a misconception that bird nest that turns to water easily are faked. This is completely wrong. Birdnest are swiftlet saliva, naturally, they should be easily turn into liquid. In fact, those that requires longer cooking time are signs that the nest are added with preservative, making it harder to soften it. Our nest only requires 1-2 hours soaking in water and 30-45 minutes double boiling 

What is Jin Si Yan?

Jin Si yan is essentially house nest that was kept longer in the farm than the rest of the nest. Reason could be the there are eggs or baby swiftlets  still in the nest, so farmer will wait until they left the nest before harvesting. The nest is exposed in the environment longer therefore giving it the golden colour. Prices are generally higher. Some unethical  merchant will resort in dying it with coloring and sell for a better profit. Taste and nutritional value wise, it is about the same. It is definitely not worth the money for paying a premium just for the color.

hand-pick3

Cleaning Process

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Nest Cleaning is a very important and time-consuming process. A great deal of care is taken during the cleaning of nests. Nest cleaning is usually performed by means of the conventional cleaning process. Our Birdnest go through a labour intensive 5 Tier cleaning process to filter out any dirt or feathers. Generally, the harvested edible Bird’s Nests consist of impurities like sand, feathers, egg shells, etc. The conventional cleaning process involves the immersion of nests in water and allowing them to swell. This enables an easy separation of the large feathers from the nest matrix by using forceps. However, care must be taken regarding the elution of the water soluble nutrients in birdnest. Our nest are semi dry pick, meaning the nest are not fully submerged in water during cleaning to retain the taste and nutrition of the nest. 

 

After cleaning process, the separated strands of bird nest and broken filaments are arranged to make nest cake by molding. The shape of the mold could be in leaf shape, round or square, and it depends on the producer’s preference. This is followed by drying of the nests. The drying involves the use of fan or the nests are simply air dried. Our raw bird’s nests are chosen from controlled environment to avoid the presence of any heavy metals or other biological contaminants.

 

 

All our workers are skilled and well trained under the supervision of an expert. High grade reverse osmosis water is used to ensure the cleanliness, and preserve the natural flavour and nutrients of the nest.

Processed bird‘s nests are dried in oven (no fan drying) until the right moisture content is achieved. Besides, implementation of the stringent quality control protocols for the end products will allow better grade of bird’s nest.

Our knowledge in the food processing technology, some of the requirements which are stated below should be implement in the bird’s nest cleaning industry. This will surely allow a better and healthy growth for the industry and increase the quality of the nests, since the public become more concerned we aware of the food they consume.

FAKE-NEST

10 Ways to Spot Fake Birdnest

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Here are the 10 most reliable method to tell if you have purchased a genuine or fake bird’s nest.

1. Transparency A real bird nest looks semi transparent while a fake bird nest will not be transparent at all, some may even appear to have a reflective surface from the chemicals applied onto it. Some use pork skin or tree sap in Thailand to fake it.

2. Fragility The biological make-up of a real bird’s nest is such that, when you crumble it between your fingers, the nest breaks down into small specks or dust-sized pieces. A fake bird nest will break into large chunks. 

3. Shape and Appearance Real bird’s nest have no distinctive shape, occasionally you may also be able to spot small feathers stuck within the fibres. Whereas for fake bird’s best, it has a bumpy surface and look identically uniform and sometimes with slight smell of medication. 

4. Absorptivity It is a common practise to soak bird’s nest for a couple of hours before cooking it. The real bird’s nest will bloat to about twice its original size while a fake bird nest will show no significant growth in size. There may even be foreign particle appearing after soaking a fake bird nest.

5. Post-soak shape: Fake nests are more uniform. After about 30 minutes of soaking it, a real birdnest transform into a gelatinous, formless shape. The fibers of the nest will be somewhat visible, but not nearly as uniform as they were when they were dry. You may also find a feather or two; this is completely normal. Fake bird’s nests will maintain a uniform shape during the soaking process and will have a minor chemical or fatty/fried smell. The surface of the fake bird’s nest will be bumpy.

6. Coloring After soaking the bird’s nest, a genuine bird nest will have its water clear throughout the soaking process while the fake bird nest will shown signs of decoloring into the water due to artificial coloring.

7. Foams Place the bird nest in a bowl of water and stir it, real bird’s nest will cause foam to appear on the surface of the water while the water remains clear throughout. A fake bird’s nest will not show any foam on the water surface, the water will instead become murky and cloudy.

8. Structural Observation Under Microscope Use a microscope if you have one to see the patterns of the bird nest’s fibre. A pure bird nest will look unevenly structured while a fake bird nest will look coarsely distributed and transparent (neater fibres).

9. Fake Bloodnest Arguably the most prized bird’s nest type is the blood nest, a red bird’s nest thought to be colored by blood in the swiftlet’s saliva which is untrue. Once your soak is done, the real red bird’s nest will retain its blood-red color. The red coloring of a fake bird’s nest will bleed into the water, a sign that artificial colors were used to tint the nest.

birdnestfarm

Our Birdnest Farm

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Here’s some facts about the nature of swiftlets. Swiftlet will breed three times a year, the eggs are usually laid in pairs and then incubated for 3-4 weeks. When the baby swiftlets are large enough to fly, they will abandon the nest and usually come back to the same place to breed again. Swiftlet will build a new nest each time they breed, the leftover bird’s nest is then harvested by the human and served as edible bird’s nest.

Therefore it is vital that swiftlet farms are located in a good environment. Our farms are located in Riau, away from industrial and densely populated areas. Ideally, swiftlet houses should be situated in cool and highland areas.

The traditional way of harvesting bird’s nest is dangerous, with no safety equipment besides a helmet and rope, the harvesters risk their lives to climb up vertical cave walls and collect the nests.

Compared to traditional cave harvesting, we lure swiftlets by mimicking their natural habitat in our farm house and we harvest the nest under a controlled environment, reducing impurities while getting consistent nest shapes desired by the market. 

To lure swiftlets into houses, our earmarked areas are located along the swiftlets’ flight path, while Riau provide an environment teeming with resources for the swiftlets when they gather food.

 

Compare to Cave nest, nest harvested in a farm environment are safer, cheaper , less impurities and more sustainable. The area where the nest are harvested also determines the appearance and colour of the nest, resulting in difference in prices from different region.