Monk Fruit and Chrysanthemum Flower Herbal Tea (for dry coughs and yin deficiency)

Monk Fruit and Chrysanthemum Flower Herbal Tea (for dry coughs and yin deficiency)

Monk Fruit and Chrysanthemum Flower Herbal Tea (for dry coughs and yin deficiency)

Soup Name:

Monk Fruit and Chrysanthemum Flower Herbal Tea (for dry coughs and yin deficiency)

Traditional Chinese Name:

羅漢果菊花茶 (luó hàn guǒ jú huā chá)

This tea is slightly cooling in nature and sweet to taste.

 

For videos, visit us on YouTube.

This morning, I woke up with a dry and itchy throat with an on and off dry cough, a bit of sore throat, some shallow breathing, and a feeling of overall cold.  This is what I call temporary yin deficiency (of the lung).  I was riding the day before in 3C and with prolonged lung exposure to a cold environment, the onset of yin deficiency was topical and pretty quick to show itself.  Which means, I could also address it right away! 

Lung yin deficiency shows up as dry and fire in the lungs, which is sometimes mistaken for excess yang.  It can feel ticklish in the throat and just not comfortable to speak.

This sweet tea will help cool and moisten the lungs and throat, calm the dry cough, and restore balance between yin and yang in the body.  Keeping monk fruit and dried chrysanthemum flowers in my pantry are great because I can quickly throw together a tea

What’s involved?

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 5 mins

Serves: 2 cups

Ingredients

 

Cooking Instructions
  1. Add all the ingredients into a ceramic or glass pot
  2. Pour in 4 cups of cold water
  3. Set to high for 10 minutes (or until it begins to boil)
  4. Cover and reduce heat to a low boil
  5. Boil for an hour
  6. When you’re ready to serve, you can drop in the rock sugar and mix until dissolved or add honey after you’ve served (as not to breakdown the honey in the boiling water)
  7. Strain and serve.  Drink hot!  Enjoy!
Any benefits?
  • This soup is perfect for nourishing and tonifying the lungs
  • It helps with cough, especially a dry cough where there is Yin deficiency (or appears as heaty)
  • It’s a sweet tea that is perfect for the whole family
  • It’s a cooling tea and helps cool and lubricate the lungs

For videos, visit us on YouTube.

The monk fruit!  This is the slightly less dry version.  You’ll notice it’s more green and less brown.  This one is a little more expensive, coming in at $2 CAD per monk fruit.  You’ll also notice a thin layer of sugared coating, so it is a bit sticky to touch, but that’s just the sugars of the fruit on the skin.  The great thing about the greener version is that it isn’t as pungent or sweet, so you can use half in a soup to give is just enough of that flavour.  If it’s the heavily dried version, I will only use a quarter in 3L of soup water.  This is also great in teas!!  

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Apple Chinese Herbal Tea (For Coughs)

Apple Chinese Herbal Tea (For Coughs)

Apple Chinese Herbal Tea (For Coughs)

Soup Name

Apple Chinese Herbal Tea (For Coughs)

Traditional Chinese Name:  

蘋果止咳茶 (píng guǒ zhǐ ké chá)

 

For more videos, visit us on YouTube.

When a virus, cold, or flu has you down, my go to hot drink is usually a Chinese Herbal tea that addresses my illness.  Lately, I have been tackling yet another virus strain that has left me with a cough and my Chinese Herbalist recommended this easy, smooth, vitamin C packed Chinese tea to address my cough and heal my lungs.

It’s a tea because I don’t use meats or bones, but I don’t actually put any tea leaves in it.  The key ingredient is the dried seabed coconut (which is a lung healer and addresses coughs).  Also throw in some dried snow pears, dried apricot kernals (north and south), dried lily bulbs, dried tangerine peel, sugared dates, and fresh apples.

What’s involved?

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 2 hours

Total time: 2 hours 30 mins

Serves: 2 cups

Ingredients

According to my Chinese doctor, apples are the only fruit I can consume while with a cough, cold, virus, or flu.  They are the most neutral of fruits.   In a ceramic pot, boil your water (4 cups worth, which will reduce to 2 cups).  When the water boils, add all the ingredients together and cover.  Boil on medium for 2 hours until it reduces and the apples become soft.

 

In the end, you’re left with a slightly tart, slightly sweet, but very smooth and rich tea.  You can even eat the apples!  For those who don’t like the stuff floating around, you can strain the tea through a thin strainer as bits of apples may be dissolved into the tea (also very yummy!).

Cooking Instructions

  1. Boil your water in a ceramic pot
  2. Half your apples, keeping the skin on (so they don’t completely disintegrate into the tea)
  3. When your water boils, add all the ingredients in together
  4. Boil on medium for 2 hours
  5. Let cool, serve and enjoy!
  6. Or follow along in the video

For more videos, visit us on YouTube.

 

 

 

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Dried and Sugared Whole Kumquat

Dried and Sugared Whole Kumquat

Ingredient Name:  Dried and Sugared Whole Kumquat

Traditional Chinese Name: 桔餅(Jú bǐng)

What is this?

  • This is a pretty unique ingredient to soups, especially soups that are designed for the throat and lungs
  • The Chinese recommend eating preserved and salted kumquats (whole) to soothe and heal the throat, or address coughs and this is the dried variation to be used in soups or teas
  • This dried kumquat is slightly sweet and slightly tart
  • They usually come in sizes varying from around 2-3 inches in diameter and are bright orange in colour with a white coating on the outside (the sugar)
  • A majority of these are produced in China

How do I prepare it?

  • No preparation needed other than storing in a dry, cool place
  • Some people do store this in the fridge as well
  • For teas, I usually use only 1 dried kumquat for 2 cups worth of tea

Where can I buy this?

  • In Asia, especially in Hong Kong, you can buy these at the wet marts, herbalists, dried food stalls (the ones that also sell dried red dates and fish maw)
  • They also come in prepackaged soup packs

What is the cost?

  • Very affordable, only a few dollars HKD for one

Any benefits?

  • A super healing food for the throat and lungs and stomach
  • Especially recommended for teas and soups that help with coughs (especially those coughs that last long and can’t seem to shake away)
  • Extremely rich in vitamin C, dietary fibre, and pectin, which can help lower cholesterol
  • As it is also sugar coated, no additional sugar is usually needed when making teas

Any precautions?

  • Buy from a reputable source
  • Be sure to store in a dry, cool place as they can prone to spoiling in more humid weather
Winter Moisturizing Tea

Winter Moisturizing Tea

Winter Moisturizing Tea

Soup Name

Winter Moisturizing Tea

This soup or tea is completely designed for the dry, cold, dry, cold, super dry, or super cold winter conditions. It’s a vegetarian (meatless) moisturizing tea suitable for the whole family and tastes super yummy.

You can consider adding fresh snow pears or fresh apples to sweeten it further, just take caution with the amount of rock sugar you add. It’s a combination of the all the ingredients that help being moisture to the lungs, body, skin and internal organs. You can drink this to your heart’s delight!

Do note that snow pears are mildly cool ingredients, so not recommended if you’re in confinement or need to avoid cooling ingredients.

What’s involved?

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 1 hour
Total time: 1 hour 15 mins
Serves: 2 cups

Ingredients

  • 2 dried snow fungus, soaked and cut into quarters (removing the center, see video below)
  • 4 pieces of dried snow pear
  • 20 g of apricot kernals
  • 1 pieces of dried tangerine peel
  • 2-3 large dried dates
  • 20 g of dried lily bulbs
  • 1-inch diameter wide rock sugar (or brown sugar)
  • 1 L of water

Cooking Instructions

  1. Soak the dried snow fungus in warm water until it is completely covered. Let it sit for about 15 minutes until it has become soft and large. Using a pair of scissors, cut it quarters while removing the hard yellow middle.
  2. In a separate bowl, soak in warm water the dried tangerine peel for 5 minutes.
  3. Once the tangerine peel softens, using the face of a knife, scrape off the darker side of the peel (this is the bitter part) just slightly.
  4. Start to boil your tea water
  5. When the water boils, add all the dried snow pear, apricot kernals, tangerine peel, dried dates, dried lily bulbs together.
  6. Boil on medium heat for 1 hour.
  7. In the last 5 minutes, drop in the rock sugar and mix.
  8. Serve and enjoy! Ideal to drink hot in the winter time!

The ingredients are pretty common in Hong Kong or your local Asian supermarket.  And you can buy them in bulk and store them in a dry, sealed container for many months – or in the fridge for even longer.

 

Preparing the Snow Fungus (video)

For snow fungus, you’ll need to soak them in warm water for some time – pretty much until they explode into giant balls.  Normally, people don’t eat the hard middles, but you can still cut it out and put it in with the soup. The tricky thing with snow fungus is that it dissolves into the soup. This means, the soup gets thicker and stickier the longer you boil it with snow fungus (scientifically speaking is that the viscosity of the liquid increases). You can remove the snow fungus halfway through if you don’t like it so thick.

 

For more videos, visit us on YouTube.