Don't worry, no large endangered striped cats need surrender their
cojones to tantalize my taste buds and lower my cholesterol by drinking
authentic Valencian orxata.

Tigernuts (chufas) are small potato-like tubers that grow on the roots
of plants of the sedge family Cyperaceae. (1)

I was watching The Travel Channel last night, and the skinny blonde
with the big butt was in Valencia. She was complaining about how the
Spanish don't eat lunch and dinner at the times she was used to, so she
needed an energy boost in the afternoon.

She stopped at a sidewalk stand and sampled a milky, slightly
nut-flavored drink called "orxata" (Valencian spelling of "horchata")
and pronounced it "good".

So I researched the Egyptian origins of horchata, and found that, while
the good folks in Valencia do make a horchata based on rice water, the
Valencians insist that the only *real* orxata is made with tigernuts,
and they've established a quality control regulatory board to insure
that commercial users get the best product from suppliers like
http://www.tigernuts.com/chufa.html

And, I learned that a UK company http://www.chufalo.com/buy.htm has
tried to commercialize
Tigernut Crush, but there don't seem to be any distributors.

(1) I find this information particularly interesting, because three
plants of that family appear on my grandmother's family crest. It seems
like my ancestors may have been cultivating sedges, as well as grapes,
in Spain some three centuries ago...