Mulberry mistletoe and lotus seed egg tea

Ingredientsserves 4

Equipment

• A soup bag for the herb

Method

1. The herb is twigs and leaves and carries dust: rinse it well, tie it in a soup bag and soak thirty minutes.
2. Boil the eggs eight minutes and cool them in cold water before peeling; a freshly boiled egg sticks to its shell.
3. Bring six cups of water (about 1.5 litres) to the boil with the bag (and the red dates and dried longan if using), turn to low, lid on, and simmer forty-five minutes until the tea is the colour of strong pu-erh. The herb needs forty to sixty minutes to give its flavour, so a pale tea has not had long enough; an astringent one is a batch that was mostly stems, so buy from another shop next time.
4. The lotus seeds go in for the last thirty minutes only, so they are soft but whole: earlier and they cook to mush, later and they keep a hard centre. The order is after the tea has its colour and before the sugar; HK01's whole article is the answer to that one question.
5. The peeled eggs go in for the last twenty minutes to take the colour and the taste. Put them in cold; a hot egg cracks the moment it hits the pot.
6. Lift out the bag, add the slab sugar and let it dissolve. One egg and a share of lotus seeds to each bowl, drunk hot. A winter bowl, after dinner.

Take care

• Contains egg. Mulberry mistletoe is a herbalist's herb; 50 g across four bowls is the Hong Kong household amount for this pot, so do not double it.

The story

Mulberry mistletoe egg tea is the dessert shop's oldest herbal bowl, the one that crossed from the herbal-tea shop counter to the dessert menu: the 涼茶舖 sells it by the bowl beside the 廿四味 and the 五花茶, and Ah Ma makes it at home. The egg in it is why it counts as sweet soup rather than tea, and Hong Kong drinks it in winter, after dinner.

Same wall

Red bean sweet soupMung bean sweet soupSweet potato and ginger sweet soup

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.