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Suānméi tāng, smoked sour plum drink
Suānméi tāng is a chilled, dark red drink of smoked plums and hawthorn simmered with a little liquorice root and rock sugar, scented with osmanthus flowers. It is sour, sweet and lightly smoky, and in Chengdu it is drunk ice cold to cool the mouth between bites of málà.
- 1 hour 10 minutes
- Prep 30 minutes
- Cook 40 minutes
- Serves 4
Our own recipe. The photograph is AI-generated.
Ingredients
- 40g smoked dried plums (wūméi, small black smoked plums sold in Chinese supermarkets)
- 20g dried hawthorn slices (shānzhā, a tart red berry)
- 4 thin slices dried liquorice root (gāncǎo, about 3g)
- 1 piece dried tangerine peel (chénpí, about 5g)
- 80g rock sugar (bīngtáng, clear crystal sugar) or caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon dried osmanthus flowers (guìhuā, tiny golden blossoms with an apricot scent)
Let's cook
- Rinse the plums, hawthorn, liquorice root and tangerine peel in a sieve under the cold tap. Put them in a large pan with 1.5 litres cold water and leave to soak for 30 minutes.
- Bring the pan to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer gently with a lid half on for 30 minutes, until the liquid is a deep red brown and the plums are soft.
- Add the rock sugar and stir until it has dissolved, then simmer for 10 minutes more.
- Turn off the heat, stir in the osmanthus flowers and leave the drink to cool to room temperature.
- Strain it through a fine sieve into a jug, pressing on the fruit to get all the juice, then chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
- Taste and add a little more sugar dissolved in hot water if you like it sweeter. Serve ice cold in small glasses, with ice.
Tips
- Keep it covered in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- Liquorice root is strong: do not add more than the recipe says. Large amounts are best avoided in pregnancy and by anyone with high blood pressure.
Swaps
- Easier to find: if you cannot get hawthorn, use 30g dried sour cherries and simmer them with the plums.
- Less sugar: use 50g rock sugar and a squeeze of honey to taste at the end, but note honey makes it no longer vegan.
Tags
None of the 14 allergens is in this recipe as written. Some dried fruit and dried peel is treated with sulphites, so check the packets of plums, hawthorn and tangerine peel if that matters to you.
Check every packet for allergens.