Orange & pearl barley water
Pearl barley water scented with fresh orange zest and aged tangerine peel — bright, fragrant and mood-lifting.
- 50 min
- Serves 2
- Simmer
- Easy
Why it suits you: Qi Stagnation brings tension, frequent sighing and a tight chest that muggy weather makes worse. The scent of orange and tangerine peel soothes the liver, moves qi and lifts the mood, while pearl barley strengthens digestion and drains damp — gentler than an afternoon coffee.
Method
Prep 10 min · Cook 40 min- 1Rinse the pearl barley and soak for 30 minutes. Soak the tangerine peel and scrape off the pith. Wash the orange, peel off a few strips of zest (avoiding the white pith), then juice it.
- 2Bring the water to the boil, add the barley and tangerine peel, and simmer for 35–40 minutes until the grains burst and the water turns milky.
- 3Add the orange zest for the last 2 minutes. After turning off the heat, eat or strain out the barley; once warm rather than hot, stir in the orange juice and honey.
- 4Pour into a flask for the office and sip warm in the afternoon.
Cautions
- Pearl barley contains gluten; avoid it if you are gluten-sensitive or have coeliac disease.
Chef's tips
- Pearl barley is milder than Job's tears and cooks to a milky, gently sweet drink; wet markets and supermarkets sell it.
- Keep the white pith off the zest, or the drink turns bitter.
The TCM view
Pearl barley is sweet and cool, strengthens the spleen, drains damp and clears heat; orange is sweet, sour and cool, opens the chest and moves qi; aged tangerine peel is pungent, bitter and warm, moves qi and dries damp. Fragrance lifts stagnation, the barley answers Grain Buds damp-heat, and the warm peel balances the cooler barley and orange.
