Red Bean Soup
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Red Bean Soup
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Red Bean Soup (Simplified Chinese: 红豆沙 / 红豆汤; Traditional Chinese: 紅豆沙 / 紅豆湯; Pinyin: Hóngdòu shā / Hóngdòu tāng) is a Chinese sweet dessert soup made by simmering adzuki beans with sugar until soft or mashed into a thick sweet puree. In Cantonese cuisine it belongs to the tong sui (糖水) sweet-soup category served in dessert shops. It is a sweet bean soup, not a savory bean stew or chili bean dish.[1]
Characteristics
Color is deep reddish-brown; texture ranges from whole beans in thin syrup (汤) to smooth paste-like 红豆沙. Soft tasting notes: earthy bean sweetness balanced by rock sugar; dried tangerine peel can add citrus aroma without turning the bowl savory. Often enriched with lotus seeds, sago, coconut milk, or glutinous rice balls. Served hot in cool weather or chilled in summer depending on shop style. Soft leftover note in popular writing: cooled soup may be frozen into ice pops—home thrift, not a separate classical dish name.
Ingredients (overview)
Adzuki (red) beans, rock sugar or white/sliced sugar, water; optional lotus seeds, dried tangerine peel, coconut milk, purple rice, or glutinous-rice dumplings. Distinct from savory red-braised dishes. Overview only—not a recipe.
History and culture
Everyday Chinese dessert across regions; Cantonese dessert cafés feature it with Grass Jelly, mango desserts, and other tong sui. Soft banquet framing: Cantonese restaurant and banquet meal-end sweet soups commonly include a red-bean bowl with peel and lotus seeds as a gentle finish rather than a heavy Western cake course.[1] English menus say “red bean soup” or “sweet red bean soup.” Related sweet soups appear on Hong Kong Food café culture pages. Soft East Asian cousins (Korean patjuk, Japanese shiruko) share the adzuki dessert idea but are separate foodways—mention only as cross-cultural peer, not as origin claims.
Soft seasonal rhythm: shops lean hot bowls in cool months and iced ladles in summer, the same dessert identity under different temperatures. Soft wedding and festival gift boxes sometimes include sweet red-bean pastes related to the soup family; treat packaged paste as a bakery cousin, not identical to tong sui bowls. Brand names on café menus are craft examples only—this wiki does not advertise store counts or revenue.
Serving and variations
Dessert after meals or as a standalone sweet soup, hot or cold. Soft variations: coconut-milk swirl, ice cream scoop in café bowls, sago pearls, or black glutinous rice mixes. Soft contrast: savory bean stews and chili bean sauces are unrelated products. Soft texture debate among diners prefers either clearly whole beans in thin syrup or fully mashed sha-style puree—both remain red bean soup. Peer cold/hot sweets: Grass Jelly, Almond Tofu, Mango Pudding. Soft traveler tip: dried tangerine peel should perfume, not dominate; overly bitter peel often means too much peel or a long simmer without balance. See Hong Kong Food and Put Chai Ko.