At present, there are two kinds of sea cucumbers in the market: locale sea cucumber processed with locale material and imported sea cucumber. There are not distributions of locale sea cucumber in many marketplaces because of their high cost of breeding, complex working procedure, low profit and limited quantity. Therefore there are enough imported sea cucumber because of their zero cost of production and high profit.
We can distinguish sea cucumbers from specs, forms, quality and machine methods.
1.Specs: about 500g/30 for XXL spec; about 500g/40-50 for XL spec; about 500g/60-80 for ML spec; about 500g/100 or more for SL spec.
2.Form: the good sea cucumber has fat and columniform body, straight stab, light weight, small belly and ordered cupule(legs)
3.Quality: after steeping, sea cucumber takes on authentic agate color, has high elasticity, feels soft , without breakage and special odors.
4.Machining Methods: the first is sea cucumber with plant ash and this is the traditional machining procedure. The second is pure dry sea cucumber which has no salt, ash and moisture. A unit of sea cucumber with plant ash needs 23~26g fresh sea cucumber and the pure sea cucumber needs about 35g fresh ones. Therefore, the pure dry sea cucumber is more expensive than sea cucumber with plant ash.
Bad sea cucumber in the market has two characteristics: the first is that the salt goes beyond standard. The manufacturer will not process according to the standard of the aquatic products, but to add excessive salt on them in order to increase weight and win profit. The second is to adulterate and add supposititious things. They add iron or lead block, salt or small sea cucumber, make dry sea cucumber of shapeliness with mould to mix the false with the genuine. We remind the consumers to pay enough attention while purchasing.