What it is
Sour plum drink (酸梅湯, suanmeitang) is a dark drink made by boiling smoked dried plums (烏梅, wumei) and serving the sweetened liquid cold. Osmanthus flowers and liquorice root are common additions, and some recipes add hawthorn. The plums make it sour and sweet with a slight saltiness, often with a faint smokiness.
Where it came from
Plum drinks of this kind go back at least to China's Song dynasty. Wulin Jiushi (武林舊事), a record of the Southern Song capital Lin'an, now Hangzhou, lists a plum drink sold there, and a Yuan-dynasty dietary manual by Hu Sihui (忽思慧) records a "white plum drink". The modern recipe is said to have been developed at the request of the Qianlong Emperor. In old Beijing, street sellers announced chilled plum drink by clinking two small copper bowls together, and Xinyuanzhai (信遠齋) in Liulichang became famous for it.
In Taiwan, plum drinks were sold by the cup at roadside stands, along with lemonade and winter melon tea. During a 1962 cholera outbreak, health officials found the bacteria in these unregulated drinks, and they were banned. Gongyuanhao in Taipei has sold a Beijing-style smoked plum drink for more than 60 years.
How it is made
The smoked plums are boiled, often with hawthorn, liquorice and osmanthus. The liquid is strained, sweetened with rock sugar or brown sugar, then cooled and chilled. Makers vary the proportions and cooking, so each version tastes different. In Beijing the strained plums were steeped again in water to make a second liquid (酸梅滷), and the drink could also be mixed with sugar and shaped into sweets.
How to eat it
It is mainly a summer drink, served chilled as relief from the heat, and is popularly thought to help digestion. Stands sell it by the cup.
Around Taiwan
- North
- Gongyuanhao (公園號酸梅湯) stands at the Hengyang Road corner of 228 Peace Memorial Park in Taipei. Its Japanese-era building became a municipal monument in 2022. The drink, made with osmanthus and liquorice, keeps a faint smokiness, and cups wait in an ice bucket.
