Sweet Chinese herbal drink for a cough
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My poor little sister was having a very bad cough recently and was taking medication for it. However, there was some remnants of the cough that wouldn’t go away, so I undertook to boil some herbal drink (”leung sui” Cantonese) for her.
I picked up a ready made pack of herbs at a Chinese traditional medical shop which specified that it was for people nursing a cough with phlegm. It could also be boiled and drunk normally, because it is good for the body. I had taken this mixture before and I liked it because it was sweet. It did help reduce the cough I had then which helped with recovery.
Among the dried ingredients in the pack were:-
- A dried candied orange
- dried longan
- dried figs
- dried honey dates
- dried sliced pear
Another 3 items I could not identify off hand are the sliced white nut-like items. They are always inserted into any traditional herbal preparation for coughs and are either lily bulbs or apricot kernals. The other item I could not identify were the dried bark and something sliced thinly which felt stiff.
I emptied the whole pack into a pot of water and brought it to a roiling boil then simmered gently for about 1.5 hours to bring out the properties of the drink. It is clear and sweet and easy to drink (unlike most Chinese herbal preparations) so it went down well indeed.
From experience once isn’t usually enough to cure a cough, but I had good results after using about 3 packs. The herbs used usually vary according to the type of cough you have and the medical shop that is preparing it, but the sliced white waxy nuts will always be part of it as well as the pear and orange which are traditionally used for helping with coughs. This can be easily found in most Chinese Medical shops - just tell them you have a cough and you want the sweet drink. Its worked for me most times.
Related posts:
- Ho Yan Hor herbal teas
- Sweet potato soup dessert
- Nutritous Burdock and Carrot Herbal Soup
- Sweet Potato Rice Porridge (Congee)
- Quick and Easy Fresh Spinach soup
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Comments
[...] then keeps me up at night so now I’m like a zombie that looks like a panda. Not even my usual herbal cough drink helps. You don’t want to hear about my problems so tell me how I can get rid of a dry chest [...]
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Is it really helpful? I wish to try it if I’m having cough *touch wood*.