Red Date Tea ???

During confinement, according to Chinese beliefs, new mothers are not supposed to drink water, but should take in fluids in other forms, such as soups or infusions. There are 2 main types of infusions that most new mothers drink, one is the rice tea and the next of course is red date tea.

Which is tastier? Definitely the latter.

With experience from previous confinement, this time I pre packed the red dates tea ingredients for my confinement lady (CL), so that there will not be variations of taste. Well, during the last confinement, the CL just grabbed this and that, w/o exact proportions, so the red date tea tasted somehow different each day. I didn�t want this to happen again, so I prepared 27 packs of it. Why 27? I will be in hosp for 3 days, 30-3=27. One or 2 days at the end w/o this, it�s okla for me.

The amount of stuff I bought:
Red Dates / Zizyphi Fructus (hong zao) ??: 4kg
Blue Dates?? : 1kg
Black Dates??: 2kg
Dangshen / Codonopsis Pilosulae (dang shen) ??: 1kg
Dried Longan flesh / Arillus Longan (long yan rou) ???: 1.5kg
Chinese Wolfberry / Fructus Lycii (gou ji zi) ???: 1kg

The amount I packed for each day:
Red Dates: 140gm
Blue Dates: 30gm
Black Dates : 70gm
Dang Shen : 30gm
Dried Longan : 50gm
Wolfberries: 30gm
Anything extra, just keep it for herbal soups.

Method:
1. Remove seeds from all the red dates. Score black and blue dates with a knife.
2. Wash Dangshen to remove dirt. Rinse all dates, wolfberries and longan.
3. Put everything into a pot of boiling water (4L) and simmer for 3 hours.

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Wintermelon Tea ???

Days are hot...

Wintermelon tea is a nice drink to cool down a bit

There's this Malaysian brand of drinks called Yeo's and to me, they make the best asian beverages (in packaged form, of course)

And they do have Wintermelon Tea as well... rather pricey.. About RM4 (depends on where u buy) for half a dozen of 250ml packs.

Well, I decided to try and make mine... all for less than RM8 for 4L of Wintermelon tea or more.

To make a less sweet version, just wash (or even soak in cold water) the dried wintermelon pieces to get rid some of the sugar.. if u prefer sweeter, just leave them as they are. Don't cut on on the wintermelon if u want it less sweet, that way, u'll cut on the aroma too...

Ingredients:

3 cups dried wintermelon pieces (washed and sliced thinly to release flavour)

1/2 cup dried longan

5 L water (the dired wintermelon will soak up a lot, and you'll be left with about 4L

Method:

Bring water to a boil and put in dried longan and wintermelon slices. Simmer for 1 hour.

Strain the beverage and leave to cool before chilling in the fridge.

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