Winter Melon Tea

Winter melon tea has been drunk in Taiwan for about a century, ranked alongside sugarcane juice and herb-grass tea as one of the island's classic old-time iced drinks. By tradition it was discovered by a southern coastal melon farmer in the late Qing Tongzhi era who cooked winter melon down to preserve a glut, and was later refined and commercialised under the Japanese-era era by a merchant who organised the recipe into a sold product. It is quite distinct from Chinese winter-melon soup, a savoury clear soup of fresh melon — this is a long-boiled, sweetened, concentrated drink.

Poured over ice it is the colour of dark tea, clear and glinting. The first sip is clean and sweet, like a gentle dark-sugar syrup, with a soft melon-rind, faintly herbal background and a whiff of caramel from the long boil. There is no bitterness and no astringency — it slips down cold and refreshing, the sweetness mellow rather than sharp, leaving the mouth cool.

Slow boiling does two things. Heat collapses the watery winter melon's cell walls and drives off most of its moisture, concentrating its mild flavour; meanwhile the added sugar caramelises, deepening the colour to near-black and building the toffee aroma. Reduced far enough, the syrup is so saturated with sugar that on cooling it sets into a firm block that resists spoiling — a shelf-stable form of the drink. To serve, a piece is simply melted back into water, sweetness and all.