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Osmanthus wine

Osmanthus Wine
Chinesischer Duftwein Flasche.jpg
A bottle of cassia wine
Chinese
Postal Kuei Hua Chiew
Cassia wine
Chinese
Postal Kuei Chiew
Kuei Hua Chen Chiew
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Literal meaning Osmanthus Reserve

Cassia wine,osmanthus wine, or Kuei Hua Chen Chiew is an alcoholic Chinese drink, sometimes sweetened, produced from weak baijiu and flavored with sweet osmanthus flowers. It is distilled, but typically has an alcohol content less than 20%.

While the plant itself is sometimes associated with cinnamon, the blossoms' lactones impart a flavor closer to apricots and peaches.

Owing to the timing of the plant's blossoms, cassia wine is the traditional choice for the "reunion wine" drunk on the Mid-Autumn or Mooncake Festival. From the homophony between and (meaning "long" in the sense of time passing), cassia wine is also a traditional gift for birthdays in China. It is also considered a medicinal wine in traditional Chinese medicine.Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica credits sweet osmanthus with "curing the hundred diseases" and "raising the spirit".

Within China, cassia wine is associated with Xi'an and Guizhou, but production now occurs throughout China, including Beijing and at the Hong Jiang Winery in Hunan.


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