Zhongshan Plum Candies

Zhongshan Plum Candies

　　Zhongshan Plum Candies are one of the main specialties of Hezhou, Guangxi. They were first created in the seventh year of the Tongzhi reign during the Qing Dynasty (1868), and have a history of over 100 years. Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Zhongshan Plum Candies came in two types: “Salt-Cured Water Plums” and “Brown Sugar-Cured Plums.” The former were made from sun-dried green plums, while the latter were made by curing green plums with brown sugar. Later, salt-cured water plums gradually evolved into what we now know as plum candies, which are made by adding ingredients such as licorice and vanilla oil to the traditional salt-cured water plums.

　　 “The sound of bronze bowls echoes through the streets, calling out for a cup of plum soup mixed with ice water.” This line of poetry about plum soup was written by Hao Yixing (1753–1823), an economist and philologist of the Qing Dynasty’s Jiaqing era, in his collection *Poems from the Book-Drying Hall*. People in Hezhou not only use plums to make soup, but also employ them in medicine and liquor-making: for headaches, dried plum flesh is applied to the navel; boiled green plum juice is poured into bottles, and when stomach pain strikes, a taste with chopsticks can relieve the pain; green plums are also soaked in white liquor for a month, producing fragrant and delicious plum wine. It is said that regularly drinking plum wine can help ease rheumatic bone and joint pain, a claim supported by Li Shizhen in *Compendium of Materia Medica*, who wrote: “Plums are the fruit of the blood; they strengthen the stomach, constrict the lungs, warm the spleen, stop bleeding and dispel phlegm, reduce swelling and detoxify, promote saliva and quench thirst, and treat chronic coughs, diarrhea, and dysentery...”

　　 According to the *Guangxi General Annals*, plums are originally from the southwest region of China and have been cultivated in Guangxi for more than 2,000 years. A large wild plum forest was once discovered in Xing’an County. Nowadays, the main plum-producing areas in Guangxi are Hezhou, Nanning, and others. Plums come in three varieties: red plums, green plums, and white plums. The superior variety is the large-flesh plum, originally from Zhongshan County, known as the “King of Plums.” Its characteristics include large fruit size, thick flesh, small pits, balanced sweetness and acidity, and a juicy, crisp texture. Binyang County also produces and exports both plums and plum candies.