Su Jeong Gwa Tea (Version 2 - Sweet)

Last year I made Su Jeong Gwa, a Korean tea, that I had gotten out of a Korean cookbook. After I posted it to this blog, my friend Kelsey (who also lived in Korea for a year) told me she had also made it, but her recipe was rather different than mine. So I wanted to make both and compare. It just took me awhile to actually do it. 

They taste vastly different or I wouldn't bother making two posts for one type of tea. This version is sweeter, has less ingredients, and the ingredients required are more easily obtained from your average American grocery store. The recipe also makes more, a lot more. (In fact I halved the recipe and it still makes a lot) It is darker in color, and as I said earlier, is sweeter. Ginger comes through much more strong in the spicy version, and has more complexity overall. Cinnamon is the primary flavor in the sweet one. 

I think both are amazing teas, you just have to ask, do you want a spicy tea or a sweet tea? 

Makes 11 cups of tea. 

Ingredients:

• 2.5 ounces cinnamon sticks rinsed
• 3.5 ounces fresh ginger (skinned and cut into thin slices)
• 1 1/4 cup sugar (most any is fine, but I used brown sugar)
• 11 cups water
• Optional garnishes: pine nuts, dried jujube, dried persimmon, cinnamon stick

Instructions:

1. Boil the water, ginger, and cinnamon sticks for 40 min. 
2. Strain and discard slices of ginger and cinnamon sticks.
3. Return to pot and add sugar. Boil until sugar dissolves (10-20 min)
4. Garnish with optional garnishes - if using dried persimmon, add ahead of time, like an hour ahead, to release flavors
5. Serve hot or cold (I served it hot, only in re-reading the original recipe did I realize this one is meant to serve cold. I totally missed that part and drank it warm the first 3 times I drank some.  As of writing this I have yet to try it cold. It's superb warm on a cold winter day.  

**Note: Original recipe has you boiling half the water with the ginger and half the water with the cinnamon then discarding the solids and combining.  Supposedly it brings out the flavors more to do them separately... I don't know. It seemed like to much work and I couldn't imagine how much different it would be so I didn't do it. 

Adapted from: My Korean Kitchen

Spicy Version is here: Drinking with Doyle

The making of:

The two teas side by side for comparison, the sweet tea is in the clear mug and the blue top pitcher.  (I only have 1 glass mug unfortunately) The spicy one is in the cat mug and green topped pitcher.