Job’s Tears – 5 Seeds

Job’s tears, (Coix lacryma-jobi), cereal grass of the family Poaceae. It’s also known as adlay and coix. Job’s tears receives its name from the hard shiny tear-shaped structures that enclose the seed kernels. Those beadlike pseudocarps are sometimes used for jewelry and rosaries. Forms of the plant are cultivated as a cereal crop in parts of East Asia and in the Philippines, and its edible grains are sometimes marketed as Chinese pearl barley in the West. It is also grown as a garden ornamental.

Job’s tears is a tall perennial grass. It grows 1 to 3 metres tall and features jointed stems with long flat leaf blades. Male and female flowers are borne on the same plant and bloom in the late summer. The pseudocarps that surround the seeds are off-white or dark in colour and are 6 to 12 mm long.

Culinary Uses

• Seed – cooked. A pleasant mild flavour, it can be used in soups and broths.
• It can be ground into a flour and used to make bread or used in any of the ways that rice is used.
• The pounded kernel is also made into a sweet dish by frying and coating with sugar.
• It is also husked and eaten out of hand like a peanut
• A tea can be made from the parched seeds.
• Beers and wines are made from the fermented grain.
• A coffee is made from the roasted seed.

Job’s Tears Medicinal Benefits

• The fruits are anodyne, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, antiseptic, antispasmodic, hypoglycaemic, hypotensive, sedative and vermifuge.
• The fruits are used in folk remedies for abdominal tumours, oesophageal, gastrointestinal, and lung cancers, various tumours, as well as excrescences, warts, and whitlows.
• It is also used in the treatment of lung abscess, lobar pneumonia, appendicitis, rheumatoid arthritis, beriberi, diarrhoea, oedema and difficult urination.

Growing Job’s Tears

• If your area has relatively warm, frost-free winters, you can grow Job’s tears as a perennial, direct-seeding it outdoors in spring for a harvest extending through the autumn.
• To speed germination, scarify the seeds first.
• Then pre-soak seeds overnight in warm water.
• Sow the soaked seeds in situ, dibbling the seed 5cm deep in the soil.
• The seed usually germinates in 3 – 4 weeks at 25°c.
• If you started the seeds indoors, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and plant out in late spring.
• Job’s tears prefers full sun and a warm location, and does well planted near a building wall.
• It tolerates most soils, including light, sandy soil, loam or clay.
• It isn’t particular about soil acidity, but it needs a moist location and can do well planted near a stream, pond or other water feature.
• The edible seeds are ready to harvest when they turn black; any seeds that remain gray should be discarded.
• For use in jewelry projects, they should be dried in the sun for a day or two prior to use.