Jujube Tea (대추차 - dae chu cha)

I brought a bag of dried daechu (대추 - a.k.a., jujube, red date, Chinese date, Korean date) from Korea. Daechu can be eaten fresh with the skin on (think a baby version of lady apple) but it is more widely used after drying. It's one of those Korean ingredients that work well in savory dishes as well as in traditional sweets. Daechu is used in so many Korean dishes, including Samgyetang (삼계탕 - chicken soup with ginseng), yakshik (약식 - glutinous rice dessert mixed with nuts and daechu) and various sweet rice cakes. As many of traditional Korean ingredients do, daechu also comes with its own medicinal qualities such as aiding digestion and calming your nerves. For me, the best way to appreciate the slighty earthy and mostly sweet quality of daechu is daechu cha, tea made with only water and daechu.

Since there are only two ingredients used for this tea, the quality of daechu becomes important. In my long years of consuming daechu, I've found that bigger ones, more commonly found in Korean grocery stores in the U.S., tend to be not as sweet, so you may have to add sugar or honey to compensate for the natural sweetness found in the small, tight, wrinkly ones that are more common in Korea. You'll appreciate the sweet ones even before tasting the tea, when it comes to a boil and its intoxicating sweet aroma fills up the kitchen. Big or small, you will likely find them in packages in Korean grocery stores and Asian stores.

I've seen recommendations from Korean daechu farms to make tea by simmering over low heat for 7-8 hours for best flavor. If you want to try it that way, a slow cooker would be a good thing to have. Let it go for a few hours (to 7-8 hours) over low heat until daechu get all really plump. Then follow the rest of the steps below (pop and strain). No need to reheat unless you want to reduce it and get the tea to thicken.

To make 8~ 10 cups of daechu cha)

3 C dried daechu (대추), a.k.a. jujube, red dates, Chinese dates, Korean dates
plus 2-3 for garnish
16 C water
Optional) fresh, peeled and sliced ginger about the size of your thumb and/or a cinamon stick for flavoring; honey or sugar for added sweetness

Over time, I've come up with a highly unscientific ratio of daechu to water to a big pot. Find the biggest pot at home, fill it up with water to about 80% height of the pot, and put enough daechu to cover the surface of the water. So that's how I got to 3 cups daechu to 16 cups water this time. You're welcome to use my 'recipe' here, but no need to panic if you come just short of daechu or water amount specified above.

Wash

Boil

Pop

Strain

Garnish

Wash daechu in cold water. Grab a fistful of daechu and rub against one another to get rid of any dirt in the wrinkles of daechu. Repeat with the rest of daechu. Rinse. Discard water.

Add daechu and 16 cups of new water in a pot. Bring it up to a boil over high heat. Once it's boiling, turn down heat to moderate and let it simmer, slightly covered. If you are adding ginger and/or cinnamon, add them in the pot now.

* From what I've found, there is no need to worry about white powder bubbling up or coating daechu as you boil them. Feel free to skim off the white bubbles that rise to the top, but it goes away as it cools. It's part of natural ingredient in daechu - some say saponin, others say sugar, or I'm guessing both because saponin is composed of sugars. I couldn't find an authoritive opinion on this, but it's supposed to be natural and more of it is found in organic, sweeter daechu. If you can point me to a definitive answer, please let me know so that I can update this part.

After about an hour, most daechu should be plump (with a few at least less wrinkly) from sitting in hot water. Turn off the heat. With an wooden spoon, press daechu gently against the side of the pot and pop the flesh out. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Turn off the heat. With a strainer, scoop out a batch of popped daechu. With an wooden spoon, stir and gently press to separate daechu skin and seeds from flesh while keeping the strainer half submerged in daechu water in the pot. Discard the daechu skin and seeds remaining in the strainer. Repeat with the rest of daechu in the pot. If you started with ginger and/or cinnamon stick, discard those at this point.

From here, it's up to you if you want to further reduce the tea to make it thicker, if you want to add sugar or honey for extra sweetness. Keep in mind that you'll taste sweetness better after it cools down.

For daechu garnish, cut around a daechu to take out the seed. roll the daechu tightly and slice it with a sharp knife.

Once it's cooled to room temperature, store tea in an air-tight container and keep it refrigerated.

Serve hot or chilled.

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