The natural environment in Malaysia is excellent, the ecosystem is pollution-free, and it has the highest quality virgin forest reserve in the world. Swiftlets can fly freely and have sufficient food, thus ensuring the quality of bird's nests. However, forest fires often occur in Indonesia, and the dust content in the air is relatively high. If the bird's house happens to be in an environmentally polluted area, the quality will naturally decrease a lot.
Malaysian government regulations are stricter
The Malaysian government has given strong support and supervision to the bird's nest industry, stipulating that bird's nest bases must be set up in a 50-kilometer radius where there is no industry. "The Malaysian government inspects every batch of bird's nests exported through formal channels, and only passes the strict inspection of eight indicators, including the authenticity of bird's nests, the quality of bird's nests, and the safety of bird's nests.
However, the Indonesian bird's nest industry has not received such strong supervision from the government, and some counterfeiting techniques have reached the point where experts cannot distinguish them. Therefore, many consumers avoid Indonesian bird's nests because of Indonesia's perfect counterfeiting techniques. However, there are policies and countermeasures, and many Indonesian bird's nests still come to China through other countries or other channels.
Malaysia climate season
The climatic conditions of Indonesia and Malaysia belong to the tropical rainforest climate, with high temperature, high humidity and high rainfall. Indonesia is the main producer of bird's nest in the world, followed by Malaysia. Indonesia is a country of thousands of islands and has a wide distribution of land, while Malaysia is divided into East Malaysia and West Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia). Except for the dry weather and the moulting season of swiftlets (May to October every year), there are few insects, and swiftlets have relatively insufficient food. The nests they build are small and thin, with more feathers. But dry weather does not mean that the entire production area does not have good raw materials. Take Peninsular Malaysia as an example: when the weather on the west coast of the peninsula is dry, it is affected by the tropical monsoon, and the east coast of the peninsula is often in a continuous rainy season. Overall, the two countries have the same climate conditions and are also the best habitat for swiftlets. From this perspective, bird's nests are not good or bad.
Swiftlet species
In addition to the dry weather and moulting season, the species of swiftlet will determine the quality of bird's nest. Let's take a look at the distribution of the two main swiftlet species. The first bird house in history was in Central Java. Due to the rise of swiftlet houses, the reproduction rate of swiftlets accelerated. Due to the relative shortage of food, the clawed swiftlet species migrated east and west to Java, Bali, and Sumatra. At that time, Malaysia had not yet developed a swallow industry. It is speculated that due to the lack of food, coupled with the annual tradition of burning barbs in Indonesia to reclaim the wasteland, resulting in environmental damage, the clawed swiftlet crossed the Strait of Malacca to the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Malacca began to develop a swallow industry. Later, the swiftlet began to move north from Malacca to Penang, Thailand, and Cambodia. The nests of the Swiftlet species are usually thinner.
Let's take a look at the best habitat for the swiftlet, Borneo. Borneo is the third largest island in the world, after the tropical rainforest of the Amazon River Basin. Borneo is divided into Sarawak in East Malaysia, Sabah and Kalimantan in Indonesia. The main species of Borneo's swiftlet is the Gordian swiftlet, which builds thicker and better quality nests. The Gordian swiftlet is mainly distributed from East Malaysia and Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, and then across to my hometown, the east coast of the Malay Peninsula with the largest and most intact tropical rainforest reserve in the world, and later extended north to the waters of Vietnam. The world-famous Malaysian Koman Dong Swallow and the Vietnamese Hoi An Dong Swallow are the nests of the Gordian Swallow.
The geographical environment of swallow houses is different, and the food is also different.
Swiftlet's food is flying insects, divided into wetland insects and dry land insects such as fruit flies, gadflies, fireflies, termites and so on. If the bird's house is in the coastal estuary mangrove forest, due to the rich wetland insects, Swiftlet does not need to fly to long-distance foraging, long-term eating wetland insects Swiftlet's nest whitening delicate and large, the disadvantage is delicate and not resistant to stew. If the bird's house is in the dry field, Swiftlet long-term eating land insects. Land insects are mainly fruit flies and termites in the forest orchard. Anyone who is a country child like me should know that dead tree roots in the woods may have termite nests. Termites are rich in protein. When termites are sexually mature, they will grow wings and fly into the air. Swiftlet likes to eat flying termites the most. The nest built by the swiftlet that eats land insects for a long time is milky white and beige, the silk is thick and tough, and the egg white flavor is more fragrant and resistant to stewing.
Processing methods and processing concepts
Since ancient times, the method of processing and cleaning bird's nest has been the ancient method of manual wet picking and then setting, paying attention to cleanliness. The wholesale quotations at that time stated the price, specification, moisture and cleanliness. For example, 90% cleanliness is one price, and 95% cleanliness is another price. With the same specification, the cleaner the picking, the higher the raw material loss, the higher the labor cost, and the better the cleanliness, the more expensive the price will naturally be. As long as you are careful, the wet picking method can achieve 98% cleanliness.
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