Tai Jade Dye

This special and vibrat deep green dye with golden hues can be only harvested by crushing a lot of tiny desert beetles with a pigment binding liquid. It is one of the main specialties of the Tai fabric industry that has been famous for millenia. It is the colour of life and because it is also safe to ingest, it features in many popular dishes. Although adding too much colouring can result in slightly too salty and bitter taste, so use it sparingly. It is also a pain to wash off - it is a popular mischief of the locals to offer many traditional meals to tourists and watch them walk of with giant green smears over their faces that will be there for at least a week even with intense attempts to scrub it off. Always eat with chopsticks when in Tai.
When prepared well this dye is mostly used for dying fabrics as very little other pigments are as strong or as beautiful. That's why you can see different variations of green clothing all over Tai, even though it is mostly among the middle and lower upper classes. The truly rich use green very sparingly and adorn it with many golden emboideries to the point where you can't even see there was any green fabric to begin with.
This colour doesn't fade in the sun and can also be used for paints even though it tends to make the surface crack and has to be frequently maintained and therefore it is not popular choice to use on buildings, not even for little decorations. The only exceptions are the taverns that use the dye frequently in it's dishes and have no problem to touch up their signs here and there to attract new customers. Pretty and vibrat sing posts are a mark of a well maintained inn.