What is Sam Bat Mai Kudzu 三不賣野葛菜水？

You can call it soup, you can call it herbal tea, I would say it is a tasty herbal soup 😆.

The soup is made of various ingredients such as kudzu, spatulateleaved sauropus, grosvenor momordica, jujube, dried tangerine peel. You can Google the names but probably you will have no idea what they are, me either. Anyway, people use different herbs and boil it for over 10 hours. It tastes sweet and slightly sour. Some people like me like to add a bit salt to make it more aromatic. It is very refreshing and good for detoxing like most of the herbal teas except it tastes good.

This shop is a famous shop in Wan Chai which is called “Sam Bat Bai” (三不賣). Literally it means “three-don’t-sell”. The actual meaning is the shop won’t sell without meeting three standards - not enough ingredients,  not enough cooking, (shop) not clean and hygienic enough. In fact the shop only sells this single product since 1948 and is still famous and popular in Wan Chai. You can either order one bowl and drink it at the shop or order a bottle and take away, or both.

Address:

226 Johnston Road, Wan Chai

G/F, Rejoice Court, 18 Fa Yuen Street, Mong Kok