You Can’t Celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival Without a Herb Soup

Special Flavour of Pu’er in the Dragon Boat Festival

You Can’t Celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival Without a Herb Soup

The verse of “traditional Chinese rice-puddings packaged with colourful silk yarn and served in a gilded plate are for unmarried young girls.”, written by Ouyang Xiu, a litterateur in the Northern Song (960-1127), vividly depicts a convivial atmosphere during the Dragon Boat Festival.

To celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival and sacrifice Qu Yuan, most people will make traditional Chinese rice-pudding and run dragon-boat racing and other various cultural activities. But traditional Chinese rice-pudding is not for all. In Pu’er of Yunnan, herb soup, as an indispensable dish in the Dragon Boat Festival, has its own special and unique flavour.

“Most herbs are medicinal and hundreds of herbs may be one hundred medicines.” Several days ahead of the Dragon Boat Festival, a large number of herbs are on offer in the vegetable market, along pavements and in Simao district of Pu’er city. There are more than one hundred eatable wild traditional Chinese medicines, such as polygonum multiflorum, Heshiwu, Chonglei, angelica sinensis, Yiwozi, achyranthes root, red garlic, radix asparagi, gaultheria cumingiana, stemona root, cirsium shansiense and others.

It is well known that Chinese herbal medicines are used to treat illness. In Pu’er, herbs have become a feature of the Dragon Boat Festival after exquisite mixing and processing. Travelling to Pu’er in May of the lunar calendar, you may find that air is infused with the aroma of herbs.

In the week leading up to the Dragon Boat Festival, Wuyi Road is filled with herbs and takes on the title of “Herb Street.” Many vendors run their own stall, selling herbs at the roadside to customers. It is as prosperous as the Spring Festival.

Selling herbs before and after the Dragon Boat Festival has become a traditional custom in Pu’er. Every family gets accustomed to selecting high quality herbs and pig’s shank or chicken to make a palatable and delicious stew.   

Relying on favorable natural conditions, Pu’er is covered with exuberant plants and trees.

Due to abundant sunshine and rainwater during the festival, thousands of wild herbs of all kinds scatter around Pu’er.

If you have the opportunity to travel to Pu’er for the Dragon Boat Festival, do not forget to have a taste of herb soup, which will left you with some tasty memories!

Essential herbal cate  

Healthy herb and traditional food ingredients are enough to cook a special Pu’er dish during the Dragon Boat Festival.

These include chicken stewed with herb which can invigorate and enrich the circulation of blood; oxtail stewed with sealwort which can nourish the liver and kidneys; nourishing herb soup which can nourish vitality and the heart.