The Japanese know it as Yuzu tea; in Korea, it’s pronounced as Yuja Cha (유자차); If you are tasting your way through China, you will know it as Youzi Cha (柚子茶). Add a spoonful of this thick, delicious citrus-infused honey marmalade like substance to an 80°C cup of water, and it will warm your whole body while chasing away the winter dryness that seems to have taken up permanent residence in your throat. In summer, add it to a glass of sparkling water to get a healthy alternative to soft drinks.
While it is easy to buy a premade jar of Yuja-Cheong (Yuja tea in marmalade form before it is mixed with water) at your local Asian grocer, I prefer making my own. With homemade Youzi cha marmalade, I can control the amount of fruit pulp in my tea, remove the bitter aftertaste that can sometimes come with rough mass-production products and most importantly, make sure all my ingredients are 100% organic. Here is how I make my Yuja/Yuzu/Youzi tea from scratch starting with the Youzi Cha marmalade (or Yuja Cheong).
If you are in a rush, you can skip ahead to:
• Ways to serve Youzi Cha/Yuja Cha
• Choosing your citrus
• Sugar and Substitutes
• Preparing your citrus fruits
• Jump To Recipe & Tips before you start
HOW TO SERVE YOUZI CHA TEA AND MARMALADE
I’m a tea lover, but I know many are not fans of hot beverages. While the traditional way to consume Youzi Cha is with a spoonful of marmalade into 80°C water, there are many other ways to enjoy it. Here are some of my favourites
• Sparkling Youzhi Cha Tea. This is a great summer drink and offers a natural alternative to artificial fruit flavoured soft drinks. Add a spoonful of your pre-made Youzi Cha marmalade into a glass and mix well with a small amount of sparkling water. Once everything is thoroughly mixed, add in ice cubes and fill the rest of your glass with the remaining sparkling water.
• Mix up some cocktails! If you are a fan of citrus cocktails, then a spoonful of Youzi Cha marmalade will get you very far. Add a teaspoon to your orange vodka martini, tequila sunrise, gin and tonic or even an old fashion to take things to a whole new yummy level. Just remember to drink responsibly.
• Use it like marmalade on toast. If you like marmalade on your toast, you will love Youzi Cha with your morning slice. Just don’t put too much, or things can get too sweet.
• Mix it in with your favourite baked goods. Think cake, think scones and cookies. Substitute some of your sugar with Youzi cha or drizzle a little of the undiluted marmalade into your icing for aromatic citrus notes. It’s a beautiful match with chocolate!
• Add it to your salad dressing. Liven up the flavours of a summer salad with a small teaspoon of Youzi Cha marmalade into your usual vinaigrette dressing. It goes perfectly with light leafy salads especially ones with orange or mango slices.
WHAT TYPE OF CITRUS IS USED?
Citrus fruits have similar fragrances and health/ nutritional properties. Depending on which region of Asia you are buying from, the type of citrus used in Yuja tea marmalade will vary. In Korea and Japan, they used a lemon-crossed-with-orange like fruit called yuzu. In China, they use large grapefruit-like citrus called pomelo. I’ve grown up drinking Youzi cha (柚子茶) made from pomelo as the main citrus ingredient, so my recipe will mainly use this as a base. I also included small amounts of other citrus fruits like lemons and oranges to give my Youzi Cha different depths of flavours. You can certainly use yuzu and prepare it like how pomelo is prepared. Just keep in mind it is a little more fiddly as it is smaller in size with thinner skin.
According to traditional southern Chinese cuisine, the whole pomelo fruit is edible. The skin is used like citrus zest in cooking or with the fruit’s flesh to make Youzi cha (柚子茶). The white part of the skin is often used in braised dishes with fatty cuts of meat like pork belly. Sourcing pomelo is challenging with its short in-season months. Hence I like to make enough Youzi cha marmalade to tie me over for winter and parts of spring. When choosing pomelos, select the ones with yellow skin as they have less bitterness. If your pomelo is still green, consider putting it aside for a few days to ripen up first. I’ve already quartered the portions of my recipe as not everyone consumes my amount of Youzi Cha, but if you would like to make an even smaller amount, you can half my recipe.
Out of all the different types of citrus, yuzu is the hardest to find in places outsized China, Japan and Korea. It is much easier to get your hands on a pomelo. But if you insist on going with yuzu, you can either move to Asia or try it out with Meyers Lemons. You may need a bit more sugar to balance out the acidity if you are using yuzu or Meyer Lemons.
WHAT SUGAR AND SUGAR SUBSTITUTES TO USE?
Traditionally Chinese rock sugar (also known as ‘bingtang ‘冰糖) is used alongside honey to make Youzi Cha. This type of sugar is milder in sweetness in comparison to our regular granulated sugar. Chinese rock sugar comes in large rocky crystal chunks and is coloured slightly yellow. It is considered an ingredient in traditional medicine with properties that helps in easing sore throats and dry coughs caused by the common cold. When selecting rock sugar, avoid picking white clear rock sugar as it is less healthy. You can find Chinese rock sugar in your local Asian grocer.If you cannot find any Chinese rock sugar, you can replace it with Chinese brown sugar bricks (also know as ‘bing pian tang’冰片糖) or raw sugar. While coconut sugar is a healthier sugar, I would not recommend it because it will make your tea taste like medicine.
Honey is one of the main ingredients in this recipe. Choosing the correct type of honey will make a massive difference in how your tea will end up tasting. While making your choice purely based on its nutritional health benefits is tempting, intensely flavoured honey like Manuka will overpower your tea and make things taste like cough syrup.If possible, taste test a sample of the honey before using it. I recommend selecting unfiltered organic raw honey with softer flavour profiles. I went with an Australian Eucalyptus honey as they are known as a good remedy for respiratory problems and their antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties.
PREPARING YOUR CITRUS FOR YOUZI CHA MARMALADE
The most laborious but essential step in making Youzi Cha marmalade is preparing your citrus fruit. If prepared incorrectly, you will have a bitter tea and can leave an unpleasant feeling on your tongue. In most cases, the bitter unpleasantness stems from the white parts of the citrus peel, the membrane that holds each segment, the seeds and sometimes other substances sprayed on the skin at the farm or store.
The preparation work can be divided into three stages; washing the fruits, preparing the peels and preparing the actual flesh/juice of the fruit.
Stage 2: Preparing your citrus peels/zests
The key to preparing the zest is not getting any of the white parts of the peel on the zest. The white parts will cause bitterness in your tea. Patience is the key for this step, especially when it comes to the Pomelo peel. For the lemon and orange, I highly recommend using a zest grater to save time.
Stage 3: Preparing your citrus flesh and juice
For the marmalade, you will need the fleshy parts of your pomelo segments and the juices of your oranges and lemons. I recommend zesting your oranges and lemons before you slice them open for juicing, as having the whole fruit to hold gives better a grip with the zester.
TIPS BEFORE YOU START
★ Smash up your rock sugar before you start. It will help shorten your cooking process.
Cook using low to medium heat to prevent the fruit from burning. Too high heat can also damage the essential oils of the fruit.
★ Use a glass container instead of plastic or stainless steel. The acidity in the marmalade is not friendly to metal or plastic, especially when kept over long periods.
★ Make sure the jar you are keeping the Youzi Cha marmalade in is clean, water-free and disinfected. The best way to ensure this is to steam the jar (like you would steam buns and vegetables) for 10 minutes and let it cool. Dry the container upside down in direct sunlight. If it is a cloudy day, wipe it down with a clean paper towel, then go over it with a clean paper towel that has been wet with a high alcohol content spirit like vodka.
★ Cool your citrus mixture to room temperature before mixing in honey to prevent damaging the nutrients inside your raw honey.
★ Let your Youzi Cha Marmalade sit for two weeks before making it into tea. It will give the fruit and tea time to candy with the sugar, and the honey will soak in the essential citrus oil and flavours to provide a smoother and well-rounded marmalade or tea.
★ Store airtight in your fridge to keep it for longer. Due to using mainly raw unfiltered honey for this recipe, this Youzi cha marmalade can keep for up to 6 months.
Traditional Youzi/Yuja Tea (Honey Citron Tea) Recipe
- 31 August 2021
- 30-40
- 29 hr 40 min
- Print this
Ingredients
- For Youzi Cha Marmalade/Yuja Cheong:
- 2 Pomelo
- 2 medium sized lemons
- 1 large orange
- 1 kg raw and unfiltered Honey
- 3 tbs salt
- 300g Chinese rock sugar (bing tang) or Chinese brown sugar bricks (bing pian tang)
- 250ml water
- For Youzi/Yuja Tea:
- 1 or 2 spoonfuls of Youzhi marmalade/yuja cheong
- 1 cup of warm/hot water (under 80°C)
Directions
- Step 1
- CLEANING THE CITRUS FRUITS: Clean the surface of your citrus fruits by thoroughly soaking them in cold water for 5 minutes. The soaking will help soften and loosen up any dirt or chemicals on the surface of the fruit.
- Step 2
- Using table salt, gently rub and scrub in circular motions on the surface of the fruit (similar to how you would use an exfoliating cleanser on your face) and rinse with running tap water. This step helps remove any stubborn dirt and impurities that remained after the soaking. Make sure not to bruise or damage the surface of the fruit by scrubbing too hard.
- Step 3
- Pat dry with some paper towels.
- Step 4
- PREPARING THE POMELO ZESTS: Cut off the narrow tip (stem end) of the fruit to create a flat top.
- Step 5
- Using a sharp knife, score down the sides through the outer peel from top to bottom to make 6-8 ‘petal’ sections.
- Step 6
- Peel the skin back (similar to how you would for a banana) and remove the fruit segment part of the pomelo to set aside for later.
- Step 7
- Using a sharp knife, separate the thick white peel section from the coloured outer part (known as the zest). Make sure there are no visible white bits left on the remaining zest. The white areas are a significant contributor to the bitterness. You can divide your long peel segments into smaller pieces to make it easier to remove the white parts. You should be left with very thin slices of zest (coloured part of the peels). You can discard all the white cutoffs of the peel.
- Step 8
- Stack a few of your prepped zest together and thinly cut (aka. finely julienne) into long thin strips approximately 2-3mm wide.
- Step 9
- Place julienned zest in a bowl and add a tablespoon of salt and gently knead using a grabbing motion to mix in salt with the zests. Once evenly mixed in the salt, add clean cold water to cover the zests. Soak for 30 minutes and stir with hands at the end before tipping water out. Rinse zest with cold water.
- Step 10
- Repeat step 6 at least three times. At the end of the third time, taste test a piece of zest to see if there is still bitterness in the peel. If there is still unbearable bitterness in the peel, repeat until the bitterness is no longer there. The water you tip out should become clearer and lighter in colour. Please keep in mind that uncooked peels may leave a tingly zing on your tongue that can often be mistaken for bitterness. This zing is typical for citrus peels and will come out once it is cooked. Usually, salt soaking and rinsing 3-4 times will eliminate the bitterness. Over rinsing will mean you lose the natural essential oil health benefits and citrus taste of the peel.
- Step 11
- Set prepped zest aside in strainer until you start cooking. Do not use a paper towel as it will take away the essential oils in the zest.
- Step 12
- PREPARING OTHER CITRUS ZESTS: Using a zester grater over a bowl or plate, scrape off the top coloured part of your orange and lemon peel. The easiest way to use your zester will be to hold your citrus fruit in one hand, the grater in the other, and gently slide over the top of the fruit with the grater. To avoid getting the bitter white part of the peel, you should only glide over your peel once to remove the shiny part of the skin. Do not keep grating at the peel once the shiny colourful zest is off, as you will get the bitter white part of the peel. Rotate your citrus fruit as you zest instead of rotating your grater to avoid accidentally grating your hand or over grating into the white pieces of the peel.
- Step 13
- Repeat step 1 until all oranges and lemons are zested.
- Step 14
- Cover and set aside your grated zest until you are ready to cook the marmalade.
- Step 15
- Preparing the citrus flesh and juice:Slide your fingers down the seam of each pomelo segment and break the pomelo into individual pieces.
- Step 16
- Use a pair of sharp scissors, cut along each pomelo segment’s inner seam (the thin white line that faces the very centre of the fruit). This will make the segments easier to peel.
- Step 17
- Peel off the white membrane that wraps around each segment and remove any seeds and stringy white veins still attached to the segment’s bottom. You should be left with only the flesh (or small juice sacks) of the fruit and nothing else. Set the prepped pomelo flesh aside and discard seeds, membranes and white veins.
- Step 18
- lice oranges and lemons in half with a sharp knife.
- Step 19
- Using a lemon/citrus squeezer, extract the juice from lemons and oranges and set it aside in a bowl.
- Step 20
- MAKING YOUZI CHA MARMARLADE/YUJA CHEONG: Prepare your pomelo, orange and lemons as instructed in the above preparation steps.
- Step 21
- To a saucepan, add Chinese rock sugar and water and melt over medium-high heat until sugar is completely dissolved.
- Step 22
- Turn heat down to medium, add in julienned pomelo zest and pomelo flesh, and bring to a gentle boil with tiny bubbles appearing.
- Step 23
- Turn heat down to medium-low and simmer for 35-50 minutes until most of the pomelo sections start to break into individual little juice sacks and the pomelo zest is beginning to be translucent.
- Step 24
- Add lemon and orange zest and juices and simmer while occasionally stirring for 20 minutes. The amount of liquid in the pan should start to reduce by now.
- Step 25
- At the end of the 20 minutes, the amount of liquid in the mixture should have been reduced significantly, and the Youzi Cha mixture should start to look glossy and somewhat transparent, similar to the look of some golden syrup with fruit zest and pulp. If not, keep simmering and stirring over low heat until your mixture reach that state and the liquid in the pan are minimal.
- Step 26
- Pour your Youzi Cha mixture into a wide bowl to cool.
- Step 27
- Once fully cooled, transfer your Youzi Cha mixture into your prepared jar and pour in your raw, unfiltered honey.
- Step 28
- Using a chopstick or fork, stir and mix the honey and Youzi Cha mixture until everything is incorporated evenly. Be careful not to be too rough with it, or you will put tiny air bubbles into your marmalade, which you do not want.
- Step 29
- Place a twice folded tea towel on your kitchen bench and tap the bottom of your jar against it to get some of the air bubbles out. Let the jar sit for approximately 2 hours to rest and for the air bubbles to rise to the top. After the resting period, cover with a lid and store in your fridge.
- Step 30
- MAKING YOUZI CHA/YUJA TEA: Scoop 1-2 spoonfuls of homemade Youzi Cha marmalade/Yuja Cheong into a mug. You can add as little or as much as you like. Test out the sweetness with one teaspoonful first then adjust accordingly to your own preference.
- Step 31
- Heat water to 70-80°C and pour into mug.
- Step 32
- Stir with a spoon to mix both water and Youzi Cha marmalade/Yuja Cheong. Try tea for sweetness. If not sweet enough add more Youzi Cha marmalade/Yuja Cheong. Use a spoon to eat the pomelo pieces and candied zests.
