It’s used in cooking, as a tea, and in powdered forms in desserts like these qingtuan. It’s when the mugwort plants shoot out of the ground, before they get tough and overwhelmingly large.Īfter some digging (no pun intended), I found out that mugwort is a culinary ingredient in Japan and Korea too. That’s why the window to make and enjoy qingtuan is so small. I’ve always just pulled it up and discarded it as a weed! Oh can you imagine the irony? Now I truly understand when people say, so close, yet so far! It’s a weed called mugwort (artemisia vulgaris), or 艾草 (ài cǎo) in Chinese, also known in English as wormwood. Having spent the past thirty-something years (since I left Shanghai), missing this springtime treat, I recently found out that the ingredient I need to make it myself has been right under my nose this whole time!
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Mugwort: A Versatile Ingredient Used Across Asia It’s just a few weeks in April, usually around Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day), a day for Chinese families to visit their ancestors who have passed. These are precious, because the availability window is usually very short. You already know my love for the filling, which is traditionally red bean paste. I grew up eating qingtuan and always loved the unique aroma of the green sticky rice dough (which is very similar to Japanese mochi).
It’s as much a sign of spring as daffodils, robins, and the grass turning lush and green. It’s a clear sign of spring when these little green glutinous rice dumplings, or Qingtuan (青团), appear in supermarkets and food stores in Shanghai.
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