Qingming Festival: Delighting in Spring scenery and Qingtuan delicacies

April 4 of this year marks the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day.

During this time, the weather starts to get warmer and spring becomes more pronounced, making it a period for agricultural activities like plowing, harvesting tea leaves, and planting trees. Additionally, it is a wonderful opportunity to immerse oneself in nature, as people venture out to appreciate the beauty of spring or honor their ancestors by visiting gravesites and making offerings.

The Qingming Festival has its own distinctive culinary tradition - steamed Qingtuan.

Qingtuan is a sweet green rice ball created by mixing wormwood juice and wheat seedling juice with glutinous rice flour, and then filling it with various ingredients. When steamed, Qingtuan exudes the refreshing essence of spring.

In ancient times, people observed the tradition of consuming cold food on the Hanshi Festival or Cold Food Day, which falls the day before the Qingming Festival. In the southern regions, Qingtuan was offered as a tribute to ancestors. Nowadays, Qingtuan is not as commonly used for ancestral offerings as it once was, but has instead become a spring delicacy that is popular all across China.