Honey grapefruit tea 蜂蜜西柚茶

We have finally passed the summer season of Austin. The temperature is ranging from 70s to mid 80s, very comfortable. But recent pollen levels from mold and weed are quite high. Husband and two boys have been coughed quite a bit. So I made some honey grapefruit tea this weekend to help sooth their dry and itchy throats.

This tea is originally made from pomelo (also called shaddock) 柚子. Pomelo is the largest citrus fruit, full of antioxidants. Rong Xian (容县), Yangshuo (阳朔) and Lingui (临桂), these small towns in my home province in China, Guangxi, is famous for Shatian pomelo (沙田柚, literally sandy field pomelo). It tastes like a mild grapefruit but less bitter: the membranous material around the segments are very rough, much bitter, and inedible. It is a great source of Potassium, and a very good source of Vitamin C and Hesperidin, Vitamin P.

I couldn’t find pomelo this time in Chinese Markets, so I used grapefruits, that is a hybrid of pomelo and orange. Their main nutrition value are very similar. The only thing is that grapefruit segments are bitter due to more amount of Naringenin, so we need to do a few extra steps to get rid of the bitterness.

1. Wash grapefruit thoroughly. If you have raw sea salt, rub them again the grapefruit peels to get rid of the wax.

2. Use a Peeler to get the outside grapefruit peels off. Try your best to only get the orange/red zest part, not the white part. Then rinse all the peels in water, add some salt into the water. After two hours, rub the peels using your hands, then drain the water (the water will look greenish orange). Put fresh water in, add some salt again. The less bitter you want, the longer time the peels should soak. I personally prefer to have a bit bitter flavor. I also love the smell of the peels, very refreshing.

3. While soaking the peels, we use our fingers to get rid of the think white membranous parts. The use your knife to get the segments out. Discard the rest.

4. Try taste a bit the water that you soak grapefruit zest in. If you can take the bitterness, then drain the water and cut the zest into very thin strips.

5. High heat to boil a pot of water, add some salt and cook the zest for 5 minutes or so. Drain the water. Put a pot of fresh water on the stove, add some sugar (I like to use big sugar crystals) and add zest.

6. When the zest become half-transparent, add the segments in and turn the heat to low. After the water is slowly evaporated, turn off the heat.

7. After the cooked grapefruits cool, put into a sealed container and add some honey. Put into refrigerator for 2-3 days. When drinking, spoon out some grapefruit tea and add luke warm water and enjoy!

Tips:

1) When make honey grapefruit tea, add warm water. Because very hot water will damage the nutritious components in honey, while cold water is hard to dissolve honey.

2) According to Chinese herbal medicine, drinking this tea consistently is very beneficial:

• refreshing and help digestion (V.C. and citric acid)
• sooth the sore throat and nourish the lung
• clarify, lighten skin tone or provide an even skin complexion by lessening the concentration of melanin. Beauty drinks, ladies!!