Chinese

Red Bean Soup (Hong Dou Tang / 红豆汤)

Classic Chinese dessert soup of azuki red beans slow-cooked in water with rock sugar, dried tangerine peel, and sometimes lotus seeds or lily bulb until beans are tender but intact. Served hot in winter or chilled in summer. One of the most beloved Chinese sweet soups across Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Taiwanese traditions.

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ServesFour portions

Sourced3of 6 in BC

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The Market List

The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.

300 g

dried azuki (red) beans

soaked overnight in cold water, drained

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

1.5 litres

water

Your own market

80 g

rock sugar (bing tang)

broken into small pieces

Origin · ChinaWismettac · Vancouver →

1 piece

dried tangerine peel (chen pi)

aged 3+ years preferred; soaked briefly in warm water until pliable

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Optional additions

50 g

dried lotus seeds

soaked and bitter green core removed

Origin · ChinaWismettac · Vancouver →

50 g

dried lily bulb (bai he)

soaked until softened

Origin · ChinaWismettac · Vancouver →

Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.

The Method

Drain the soaked beans and place them in a heavy pot with the water and the softened tangerine peel. Bring to the boil over medium-high heat, then reduce immediately to a gentle simmer. The surface should tremble rather than roll.

If using lotus seeds or lily bulb, add them now. Continue to simmer, partially covered, for 60–90 minutes. This is where the dish lives or dies: the heat must remain a low, steady simmer throughout — vigorous boiling will burst the beans and reduce them to paste rather than leaving them soft and intact. Check periodically that the liquid is barely moving.

When a bean pressed between two fingers yields completely but holds its shape without collapsing, the beans are done. Add the rock sugar and stir gently until fully dissolved.

Taste for sweetness; adjust with a little more rock sugar if required. Remove and discard the tangerine peel. The soup should taste gently earthy-sweet with a clean citrus aromatic note in the background — not cloying, not flat.

Serve hot in winter or allow to cool fully and refrigerate to serve chilled in summer. Ladle into bowls; the broth should be a deep garnet-red, opaque but not thick.

III

Quality Hierarchy

Reserve — Aged chen pi of 10+ years — a prized pantry ingredient in Cantonese households — alongside heirloom-variety azuki beans sourced from a specialist supplier; rock sugar from a Chinese grocer in large, naturally crystallised slabs.

Estate — Chen pi aged 3–5 years from a Chinese grocery or online supplier; good-quality dried azuki beans within the year's crop; unrefined rock sugar in small crystals.

Market — Standard dried tangerine peel from an Asian supermarket; azuki beans from the dried-goods aisle; rock sugar in pre-packed bags. Soak the peel well to coax out its depth.

House — Tangerine peel omitted or substituted with a strip of fresh mandarin zest; white granulated sugar used in place of rock sugar — the flavour will be sharper and less clean, but the soup remains wholesome.

Sensory Tests

◇Sight. The liquid barely trembles at the surface throughout cooking — any vigorous bubbling demands an immediate reduction in heat.

◇Touch. A bean pressed between thumb and forefinger yields completely and smoothly with no resistant core, yet the skin does not split and the bean does not disintegrate.

◇Sight. The finished broth is a deep, opaque garnet-red — neither pale and thin nor thick and paste-like.

◇Smell. A faint, clean citrus-aromatic note rises from the pot as the tangerine peel steeps; if absent, allow a further 10 minutes before adjusting.

◇Where it lives or dies. The soup lives or dies at the simmer: sustained gentle heat keeps every bean soft yet whole; a rolling boil dissolves them into paste and the dish is lost.

V · Cross-Cuisine Parallels

Japanese oshiruko: azuki beans simmered with sugar into a warm dessert soup, sometimes with mochi — the closest structural parallel. Korean pat bingsu: the same slow-cooked sweetened red bean base served over shaved ice — the bean preparation is identical, the serving temperature inverted. Vietnamese chè đậu xanh: mung beans replace azuki but the method — gentle simmering of dried legumes with sugar into a sweet soup — is directly analogous.

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What to Pour

The pairing

Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Buffalo Trace Distillery · Kentucky Bourbon Country

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Whisky

From British Columbia

Nothing from British Columbia holds against this yet.

Without alcohol

No pour without alcohol holds against this yet.

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The whole pairing

VII · Origin & Lineage

Rooted in Cantonese and Jiangnan (southern Yangtze delta) tradition, hong dou tang is one of the foundational tong sui — Chinese sweet soups — of the Cantonese repertoire. It is ubiquitous across southern China, equally at home in Shanghainese and Taiwanese domestic cooking. The use of chen pi as a somatic and aromatic seasoning is characteristic of the Cantonese approach to sweet soups, where medicinal and culinary logic are inseparable. Source: Every Grain of Rice, Fuchsia Dunlop.

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Origin and lineage are part of membership.

Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.

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Sourced through Provenance

The hands behind the plate.

Wismettac

Vancouver · rock sugar (bing tang), dried lotus seeds, dried lily bulb (bai he)

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