Tusu Wine
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A Japanese toso set for New Year; toso descends from Chinese tusu wine
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Tusu Wine (Simplified Chinese: 屠苏酒; Traditional Chinese: 屠蘇酒; Pinyin: Túsū jiǔ) is a wine steeped with a mixture of herbs and spices that was traditionally drunk on the first morning of the Chinese New Year. It is famous from poetry — above all Wang Anshi's New Year poem Yuanri (元日), whose line "the spring breeze brings warmth into the tusu" is learned by Chinese schoolchildren. In mainland China the custom has largely faded, but the drink survives in Japan as toso, served at New Year.[1][2]
Origin and name
Recipes for tusu appear in medieval Chinese texts, including works attributed to Ge Hong (4th century) and Sun Simiao (7th century). Tradition credits the original formula to the Han-dynasty physician Hua Tuo, or sometimes to Sun Simiao; these attributions are traditional and cannot be confirmed. The origin of the name is also disputed: explanations include a kind of broad-leaved plant, the name of a thatched hut whose occupant gave the recipe to neighbours, and a folk etymology meaning roughly "slaying demons and reviving souls".[1]
Raw materials
Historical recipes list a pouch of seven or eight dried herbs and spices — examples include Sichuan pepper, cinnamon, rhubarb, atractylodes and platycodon root — steeped in rice wine. The mix varied between sources and periods. Overview only — not a recipe, and some traditional ingredients are not suitable for casual use.[1]
Tradition
According to old accounts, the herb pouch was hung in the family well on New Year's Eve and taken out at dawn, then steeped in wine for the whole household. Unusually, the wine was drunk from the youngest to the oldest: the young were congratulated for growing a year older, while the elders drank last in a wish for long life. Poets such as Su Shi and Su Zhe wrote about always being the last to drink the tusu. The custom was associated in folk belief with warding off misfortune and epidemics in the coming year; this was a traditional belief, and no health claim is made here.[1]
The drink reached Japan around the Heian period, where toso made from a commercial spice sachet steeped in sake or mirin is still poured from lacquered vessels on New Year's morning.[2]
In China today
Tusu is now mainly a literary and historical reference in China, appearing in New Year couplets, poems and cultural programs, and occasionally revived by museums or restaurants. Modern New Year tables are more likely to feature Baijiu, Huangjiu or beer.