To understand the taste of shiso leaf, you have to try it yourself. Herbaceous? Citrusy? A hint of mint? Or is that basil? I might say cilantro, but haters of cilantro aren’t necessarily opposed to shiso. The taste is an interesting and unique one. A friend introduced me to it, and even gave me a potted plant of my own, which I promptly killed. Or so I thought.

You can see the the remains of the shiso pot in the photo above and, interestingly enough, a shiso plant growing beside it. When my friend gave me the plant, she told me I could transplant it. I am lazy, so I just chucked the pot in another planter, next to some lemon balm, and — aside from picking a leaf here and there — mostly forgot about it.

I felt vaguely sad when I noticed shards of terracotta in and around the planter, with no shiso in sight. I can assume some small person hit it with a ball, a stick or a rock and it broke. No one confessed, but I wasn’t too mad, because we all know I would have killed that plant on my own.