Traditional Chinese Name: 木耳红枣茶 (mu er hóng zǎo chá)
Introduction:
This tea is posted as a post natal/confinement tea and is drank only within the first 0-5 days of confinement to help eliminate the lochia (not going to go into detail what lochia is, but please google it if you’re not sure). It’s a simple tea with 3 ingredients (the meat is optional if you’re vegetarian) and very easy to make. It’s a sweet, slightly tart tea and must be drank hot/warm. It’s one of the better tasting teas I know available for confinement! You can boil a whole big batch for 5 days worth, refrigerate and then reheat when needed or boil fresh batches everyday. It is recommended to drink 1-2 glasses a day (depending if you’ve got other teas or soups already filling your tummy!). Do not add additives like sugar or salt. Keep it clean, light and natural.
What Ingredients are required?
This portion yields only 1 cup of the tea.
100 g of pork shank
50 g of pitted red dates
50 g of dried wood ear
3 cups of water
How do I prepare it?
- Soak your dates and wood ear for 10-15 minutes in cool water
- Boil your 3 glasses of water
- When the water boils, add all the ingredients together and boil on a medium boil (covered) for 1.5 hours
- Serve hot/warm directly as is
Any benefits?
- This tea helps in discharging and eliminating the lochia
- It helps the body regenerate and replace lost blood
Any precautions?
- Be sure to pit the dates. The pits are said to be “CHO” – which is very heaty, but not in a good way
Boiled wood ear and red dates
Can i drink it whole day like water for the first 1 week after delivered ?
Dear Elin, that’s exactly how you should drink it! You can also drink the black bean and rice water in the first few days as well. Hope this helps and congrats! Lisa
Hi thanks so much for this recipe! I’ve got a question, if I’m cooking this on slow cooker, will the recipe still be the same? Or should I just reduce the water to 1 cup? Thank you!
Hi. I know this is an old post but if I can’t find pork Shank can I use beef soup bones?
Hi Katelyn, this is designed more as a confinement tea, so if in the case if you can’t find pork shank, perhaps go vegetarian would be best. The reason is because beef is considered not so great of a healing meat and it’s a bit different in terms of flavours and uses in Chinese soups. The Chinese tend to use more pork and less beef. To be honest, I haven’t tried beef in these combinations! My first recommendation would be to go vegetarian then. Let me know how it goes! Lisa
I made the vegetarian version as I didn’t have pork shank, it is delicious! Perfect for postpartum.