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Winter Melon Tea
Let's make winter melon tea syrup from winter melon, brown sugar, and rock sugar. You can serve and enjoy winter melon tea all summer long with this syrup.
Winter melon (冬瓜) is a versatile fruit, very delicious either cooked into winter melon soup or as delicious fruit drink like this winter melon tea.
This tea is super popular in many Southeast and East Asian countries. From my own experience, I know that you can buy this tea fresh very easily in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan.
The tea is almost always served chilled, and thus, very popular during hot weather. And if you have been craving this tea, you will be able to prepare this easily in your home with my recipe. :)
What is winter melon tea?
Winter melon tea (冬瓜茶), also sometimes called winter melon punch, white gourd drink, ash gourd juice, or teh kundur in Malaysia and Indonesia is a Chinese tea made from the flesh of winter melon (冬瓜) cooked with brown sugar and rock sugar.
In the US, I have seen this drink sold in gallon-size jugs in the Asian markets, and of course, there are also the canned and boxed drink versions.
I have even spotted winter melon tea bricks where it only needs to be dissolved in hot water to make the tea! Talk about convenience. :)
How do you make winter melon tea at home?
Despite its name, there are no tea leaves in a winter melon tea. Instead, it relies on these three ingredients:
- winter melon (冬瓜), also known as a wax gourd, ash gourd, or white gourd
- brown sugar, traditionally we use Chinese brown sugar blocks (冰片糖), but regular/dark brown sugar is a great substitute
- rock sugar (冰糖)
From these three ingredients, we can cook them into winter melon syrup so we can enjoy this tea whenever we wish. Here is how to prepare the syrup:
- Mix winter melon (meat only) with brown sugar in a soup pot. Set aside for about 1 hour, you should see that some liquid has formed.
- Add rock sugar and mix. Place the pot on the stovetop, turn on the heat, and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until winter melon is completely transparent. This takes about 2 hours.
- Turn off the heat. Pass the pot content over a strainer. Strain and press as much liquid through the strainer as you can. The strained liquid is our winter melon tea syrup.
Tips: Don’t throw away the leftover winter melon, you can serve it with yogurt or pancakes/waffles for breakfast!
I store my syrup in a glass jar, and it should stay fresh for up to one week. When I want to enjoy some winter melon tea, I simply mix 1 part syrup to 3 parts water. Sometimes, I will add ice cubes when the weather is especially hot. :)
Winter Melon Tea
Ingredients
- 1.5 kilogram (~ 3.5 lb.) winter melon meat (remove the rind and seeds), cut into 1 inch cubes
- 250 gram (~ 9 oz.) brown sugar
- 50 gram (~ 1.8 oz.) rock sugar
Instructions
- Mix winter melon with brown sugar in a soup pot. Set aside for about 1 hour, you should see that some liquid has formed.
- Add rock sugar and mix. Place the pot on the stovetop, turn on the heat, and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until winter melon is completely transparent. This takes about 2 hours.
- Turn off the heat. Pass the pot content over a strainer. Strain and press as much liquid through the strainer as you can. The strained liquid is our winter melon tea syrup.
- To serve, make "tea" with 1 part concentrated winter melon syrup and 3 parts water. Add some ice cubes, and stir everything together. Serve cold.
Comments
Does rock sugar taste different from granulated white sugar?
The taste is similar to sugar, but it is less sweet compared to regular white sugar. If you cannot find rock sugar, just use white sugar, but reduce the amount since regular sugar is sweeter.
Thanks so much for the response. I saw a big block looking like dark brown sugar and labeled wintermelon tea in an Asian store. I'll try that soon since I don't have easy access to the fruit.
Ah.. I think I have seen it before. I heard that it is really sweet.
Hi, what do you mean by flesh? Is it the inner or outer? And If it the inner part should I just leave the seeds in it or remove it? And in step 1 in putting it in a pot, is it already being heated on a stove or not?
To clarify, flesh means the inner (meat?) of the winter melon, and with seeds removed as much as possible. The pot doesn't need to be heated beforehand. I hope this helps :)
Hi do you add water while cooking? Thanks
Hi Aster, there is no need to add water while cooking. The melon will release quite a bit of liquid on its own. Also, we are trying to make it into a syrupy consistency.
I tried this recipe, how come the taste is different with winter melon tea from bubble tea place. It taste more like brown sugar liquid
Hi Emilia, I haven't tried winter melon tea from bubble tea place, so I cannot comment. But my recipe yields winter melon tea with taste similar to the one widely sold in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. If you have ever tried white gourd drink from Yeo's, this recipe should produce tea with a very similar taste.
how much water?
Hi Sable, there is no need to add water while cooking. The melon will release quite a bit of liquid on its own. Also, we are trying to make it into a syrupy consistency. We only need to add water when making tea out of the syrup, and the amount of water depends on how thick and how sweet you want the tea to be at that time.
Hi Anita, thanks for the great recipe. How about processing the winter melon first using a blender before cooking it? Do you discard the fibers of the winter melon i.e. those left in the strainer, or mix them in the syrup?
Hmm.. I have never tried using blender before. But your suggestion should work Leiz. I think if using blender, the first step can be skipped, and just directly proceed to step 2, but I haven't tried to confirm this yet. The strained fibers are not mixed with syrup, but since it can be a waste to just throw them away, you can use them as yogurt topping for breakfast. :)
This tea looks so delicious and refreshing!
Wow what an interesting drink! I'd love to try this!
This looks so refreshing and healthy at the same time. I love a 3 ingredient recipe!! Refreshing, tasty and so much better than a bubble drink.
This looks so delicious .. I love that beautiful color it has .. Need to try it out soon, looks fun!!
I've never tried Winter Melon Tea it sounds delicious! Will definitely have to try it.
Is wintermelon the same/ can we do this with bitter melon?
Hi Anne, winter melon is not the same as bitter melon. I know people make tea from bitter melon, but I haven't tried it. I'm sorry I can't help if you need a bitter melon tea recipe.
Does the brown sugar cubes rectangle have to be dissolved completely (before) boiled when rested with the winter melon cubes for an hour
No, you don't have to wait until all the brown sugar dissolves completely. You can proceed with the rest of the steps after one hour.
Hello! Thanks for this winter melon tea recipe. May I just ask, what's the difference in the use of between brown sugar & the rock sugar? They are both sweet. Do we really need to use both, or maybe just either? Thanks!
Brown sugar gives winter melon tea its signature brown sugar. You can skip rock sugar if you prefer less sweet tea.
Hi, hoping you can answer this soon! I'm making this and I was at the step where you boil the mixture and add rock sugar. I got distracted and rushed back to lower the heat but was worried that I might've boiled it for too long or burnt something because the pot was producing a strange car tire-like smell. I took a sip of the syrup and it tasted sweet, though. Is this normal or did I mess up and I've created a poisonous (does it have nitrates?) mixture that I should throw out lol?
Hi Al, I have never cooked this until it burnt and produce such a strange car tire-like smell before. Is your pot non-stick? Burnt food on a non-stick pot/pan is usually not good and it is better if you throw away the food. If it's on a stainless steel pot/pan, then perhaps a little bit of burnt should be okay. If the smell bothers you, I say better safe and throw it away than sorry afterwards.
Hi Anita, in your recipe it states 250gm (9oz) brown sugar and 50gm (18oz) rock sugar. Should that be 500 gm rock sugar ?
Hi Anne, I only use 50 gram of rock sugar. I saw that I have mistakenly converted 50 gram to 18 oz and I can understand the confusion. I'll update it to 50 gram (~ 1.8 oz). :)
Great recipe! Do you store the syrup in the fridge or in the pantry?
Hi Kim, I store it in the fridge.
Hi Anita, thanks for the helpful recipe. Winter melon is my favorite drink of all time. Will the syrup stored in the fridge crystalized? Or will it after a period of time? Thank you.
Hi Bic, the syrup has never crystalized in the fridge for me, so I think it should be the same for others. That said, I always finish using up the syrup within a week, so I can't say how it performs if stored in the fridge for a long period of time.
Thanks for the simple and delicious recipe! I didn't have rock sugar and only used a mix of light and dark brown sugar. The syrup is extra yummy and I am using the leftover flesh of the winter melon as a topping for yogurt.
Hi Anita! How much syrup does the recipe yield? I got only about 8-12 oz. Does that sound right?
Hi Liz, 8-12 oz (1 to 1.5 cup) sounds about the right amount of syrup.
I am figuring out that the brown sugar amount for this recipe is a little more than a cup measure and the rock sugar is about 3 tablespoons. Am I calculating correctly? It was helpful to know that this recipe makes about -1 1/2 cups of syrup. I may try to use the blender before cooking the melon with the sugar. My neighbor gave me this melon and we have not had it before. I am curious to try it.
Hi Barbara, the brown sugar is about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cup by volume. As for the rock sugar, it could be harder to judge since rock sugar comes in irregular shaped chunks. If it isn't too difficult to get a hold of a scale, using weigh is a better way to measure the sugar. :)
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