Roasted black bean, hawthorn & poria tea
Dry-roasted black beans simmered with hawthorn, poria and aged tangerine peel — gently tart, mellow, and good for circulation and damp.
- 55 min
- Serves 2
- Simmer
- Easy
Why it suits you: Blood Stasis needs gentle, warm, blood-moving food and nothing icy, and the heavy damp of Rain Water slows circulation further. Black beans move blood and drain water, hawthorn disperses stasis and poria clears damp — sip it warm to keep things flowing.
Method
Prep 5 min · Cook 50 min- 1Rinse the black beans and pat dry, then dry-roast in a wok over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes until the skins crack and smell toasty.
- 2Rinse the hawthorn and poria; soak the tangerine peel until soft and scrape off the pith.
- 3Bring everything except the sugar to the boil with the water over high heat, then simmer for 40 minutes.
- 4Turn off the heat, stir in the brown sugar and strain into a flask; the softened black beans make a little snack.
Cautions
- Avoid during pregnancy (hawthorn), and don't drink it on an empty stomach if you have acid reflux or stomach pain.
- These black beans are soybeans — skip it if you are allergic to soy.
Chef's tips
- Buy dried hawthorn slices from a herbal shop, not the sweet hawthorn flakes sold as snacks — those are mostly sugar.
- Roast a bigger batch of beans and keep them in an airtight jar for a week; supermarkets also sell ready-roasted ones.
The TCM view
Black beans are sweet and neutral, move blood, drain water and support the spleen and kidneys; hawthorn is sour, sweet and slightly warm, moves qi and disperses stasis; poria is sweet, bland and neutral and drains damp; aged tangerine peel is pungent and warm and moves qi; brown sugar is sweet and warm and eases cold. When qi moves, blood follows — helping circulation and damp together.
