Bubai Water Spinach

Bubai Water Spinach

　　Bubai Water Spinach

　　Bubai Water Spinach, also known as hollow vegetable or water convolvulus, is an annual herbaceous plant with hollow stems that grow along vines. It is a specialty fresh vegetable of the area, with a long history—its fame reached overseas over 200 years ago.

　　Bubai Water Spinach is celebrated for being fresh, crisp, and tender. It is sold far and wide within and beyond the region. Its light and delicious soup is praised as “Azure Dragon Crossing the Sea,” making it one of people’s favorite vegetarian soup dishes. A poet, after tasting Bubai Water Spinach, once wrote: “Having tasted the Azure Dragon's flavor at the feast, I woke up in the middle of the night with its taste still lingering on my lips.”

　　A distinctive feature of Bubai Water Spinach is that it is cultivated in paddy fields, yielding long stems with dense, pointed green leaves that are fresh, crisp, and tender. When the stems are cut into segments, the broken ends curl and shrink inward—so much so that even a sharp knife cannot cut the ends cleanly. The renowned Chinese linguist Wang Li, a native of Bubai, once researched Bubai Water Spinach. He concluded that Bubai Water Spinach is second only to Hanoi water spinach in Vietnam, ranking as the world’s second-best of its kind.

　　During the convening of the 9th and 10th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China, Bubai Water Spinach was airlifted to Beijing and served as a delicacy on fine dining tables. It is said that Bubai Water Spinach was once sold in the Chinatown markets of San Francisco, USA. Although the vegetable had been frozen and the stems and leaves were somewhat withered, it was still priced at one US dollar per pound—just two dimes cheaper than chicken—illustrating the exceptional value of Bubai Water Spinach.

　　For many years, locals have harvested Bubai Water Spinach in the early morning and transported it quickly to cities such as Nanning, Qinzhou, Beihai, Wuzhou, and Guilin for sale. Some is even air-freighted to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Haikou, and even exported to Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia. Typically, Bubai Water Spinach picked in the fields around five or six in the morning becomes part of meals for people elsewhere by evening.

　　Due to the particularly unique soil, fertilizer, and water conditions required for Bubai Water Spinach to grow, transplants to other regions result in significant variation—it is only suitable for cultivation in paddy fields within about ten kilometers of the suburbs of the area. Currently, the local government has listed the development of Bubai Water Spinach as part of a comprehensive agricultural development and diversified management initiative. They are systematically building Bubai Water Spinach production bases in the suburbs, covering a planting area of 2,500 mu. With new technologies such as soilless cultivation and winter greenhouse planting, they aim to increase yield, while implementing preservation and vacuum packaging methods to boost product supply and extend availability.

　　In addition to being a delicious dish on the dining table, Bubai Water Spinach also offers health benefits such as relieving summer heat, detoxifying, stimulating saliva production, and reducing inflammation. It can help relieve constipation, and is especially therapeutic for those with high blood pressure. There are many ways to prepare it. Stir-frying is common, but locals often wash the vegetable, blanch it in boiling water for two to three minutes, remove it, squeeze out the water, and season it with minced garlic, sesame oil, chili, and other condiments, resulting in a refreshingly crisp and tasty dish. There is a local saying: “Water spinach served with plain porridge—once you start eating, you just can’t get enough.”