People in the Song Dynasty were accustomed to using jasmine, osmanthus, plum blossoms, lychees, oranges, plums, lotus seeds and other flowers and fruits to make soups. They first salted the flowers and fruits, dried them in the sun, baked them, and ground them into fine powder. Put it into a container and seal it for storage. When entertaining guests, take out some and brew it into a drink. This is called "ordering soup". People in the Song Dynasty also liked to drink pulp water. Slurry water is a lactic acid drink from the Song Dynasty. The method is very simple: cook the rice, pour it into a vat, soak it in clean cold water for five or six days, and let it ferment. After it becomes slightly sour, you can pour out the soup and drink it. It shouldn't be too sour, otherwise it will be hard to drink.
People in the Song Dynasty would also add honey, flowers and fruits to the syrup according to their personal tastes to make lychee syrup, osmanthus syrup, papaya syrup, etc., which tasted sweet and sour, and Floral and fruity, purely natural, no added fragrance.
Thirsty for water? Similar to juice concentrate. The more popular thirsty water in the Song Dynasty included Ringo thirsty water, bayberry thirsty water, papaya thirsty water, grape thirsty water, etc.
The method is: squeeze the juice of the fruit to be used, such as bayberry, filter out the pomace, put it into a pot, and simmer over low heat to let the excess water evaporate until the juice becomes a thick paste. Let cool again, pour into a clean container, and store tightly. When it's time to use it, take out an appropriate amount of concentrated juice, brew it with boiling water, and drink it. The most popular drink in Song Dynasty society was cooked water. Please note that this cooked water is not boiled water, but a drink soaked in spices such as perilla, cardamom, cloves, and osmanthus.
Bake the spices, put them into boiling water, and soak them to taste, which is cooked water, similar to today's herbal tea. Different spices can be used to make different cooked water. The cooked water soaked in perilla is called perilla cooked water. The cooked water soaked in cardamom is called cardamom cooked water. The cooked water soaked in flowers is called fragrant flower cooked water. There were many varieties of cold drinks in the Song Dynasty. During the midsummer season, the streets of Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty and Hangzhou in the Southern Song Dynasty were filled with stalls selling cold drinks to relieve the heat. They held green cloth parasols and placed a few wooden tables and chairs for people passing by. The customers sat down and drank a bowl of cold drink to quench their thirst and relieve the heat.
——Selected from "Little Days in the Song Dynasty" by Liu Mintao in the Himalayas