Yuzu Bath

One of Kochi's famous products is the yuzu fruit. Yuzu is a citrus fruit that sort of looks like a yellow orange. It tastes a bit like a lemon, but the flavor is pretty unique. This week at the Board of Education, someone brought in a huge box full of yuzu. I was a little confused by the box's presence in the back room until Janis explained that they were free to take. I'm guessing someone at the office has a yuzu tree in their yard and wanted to get rid of the excess fruit. The yuzu didn't look like the ones I'd seen in pictures; these were smaller and pockmarked. With random brown spots and scars on the peels, they didn't look that promising. But it seemed silly to pass up on free fruit, especially when there were so many of them, so I took seven or eight of them.

I know that yuzu is used in many dishes, but I didn't really think I'd be able to cook with it given my limited talent in the kitchen. However, a yuzu bath sounded like something I could manage. Traditionally, people take a yuzu bath around the winter solstice. It's supposed to have some sort of health benefit, though I forget what. I wasn't sure exactly how it worked, so I looked online for information about yuzu baths. It turns out to be fairly simple; you make a yuzu bath by putting some yuzu in the bathtub with the hot water. I saw some pictures where they had put whole yuzu fruits in the bath, and other pictures of yuzu slices floating on the water. I found the image of the yuzu slices rather appealing, so I decided to try it that way.

While I ran some bathwater, I attempted to cut the yuzu into slices. It turned out to be more difficult than anticipated as the yuzu had a number of large seeds in them. I lost patience with that and started cutting the fruit into wedges instead. That was a bit easier. I threw away the seeds that came out while I was cutting the fruit, but didn't really make a point of removing all the seeds. In hindsight, that was probably a poor choice.

I put the yuzu wedges into the bathwater and squeezed them a bit to get the water nice and citrusy. It smelled good, but it was already becoming apparent what a mess I was making. There were a large number of seeds in the bottom of the tub, and flecks of pulp floating on the water. Undeterred, I kept filling the tub and fished out some seeds while I waited.

Once the tub was full, I climbed in. The water smelled very strongly of yuzu, tangy and slightly bitter. I normally don't take baths often because it requires a lot of water and I get bored of them fairly quickly. Hunting for yuzu seeds kept me entertained for a while, though. After I had picked out all the seeds I could find, I started reading a book I bought at the Book Off at Kochi Station. I'm not sure how long I stayed in the tub, but eventually I noticed that the water was getting cooler and my skin was starting to itch a little. Perhaps I went a bit overboard with the fruit. At that point, I got out of the tub and started to drain the water.

After taking a quick shower to get the citrus off my skin, I set about cleaning up after myself. I threw away the many seeds and chunks of soggy fruit. I rinsed out the tub with clean water, but tomorrow I'll need to clean it with actual detergent. Fruit juice in the bathtub probably wasn't the smartest idea.

All in all, my yuzu bath was fairly entertaining, if messy. I doubt I'll be repeating this experiment, though. Yuzu-scented soap is a close enough approximation to satisfy me. I'll have to remember this the next time I get odd ideas about fruit in the bath.