The predecessor of Beijing Xinyuanzhai is Xinyuanzhai Honey Fruit Shop, which was founded in the fifth year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1740), the original site was in the East Liuli Factory, the founder's surname was Xiao, Qing Guangxu Hanlin, the teacher of the last emperor Puyi, Zhu Yifan was very appreciative of the honey fruit and sour plum soup of Xinyuan Zhai, and once inscribed the plaque "Xinyuan Zhai Honey Fruit Shop", hanging on the lintel. In the summer, it operates a refreshing drink sour plum soup, with a unique flavor of sour plum soup, sour plum brine, sour plum cake, enjoys a high reputation among literati and celebrities, and Mei Lanfang, Shang Xiaoyun, Ma Lianliang, etc. often visit in person. In 1915, he won the Super Prize at the Panama International Exposition. The sour plum soup of Xinyuan Zhai is generally stored in the belly blue and white porcelain altar, and there is natural ice around the porcelain altar, and the porcelain altar and natural ice are packed in a wooden box, and the wooden box is nailed with a layer of white iron and coated with a large qi. The ingredients for the food made in this shop are extremely strict. For example, sour plum soup and sour plum cake are selected from Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, especially the round, small and thick wumei produced in Ji'an, Zhejiang Province; the accessories are golden brown rock sugar and the sugar osmanthus produced by Hangzhou Zhang Changfeng or Zhang Fengyu. White sugar is made of "first layer" cotton white sugar. In production, the ingredients for making sour plum soup are very exquisite, and it is necessary to flexibly grasp according to the temperature, and it is necessary to be sour when it is hot, and sweet when it is cold. The method is: constant temperature, maceration, filtering, heating, appropriate inclusion of osmanthus flowers, rock sugar and other excipients. Sour plum soup requires a golden color, fragrant, cool mouth, and a bowl (a layer of soup is attached to the bowl). When I was a child, I paid attention to the use of a bowl to hold sour plum soup under the ice of the Chaobai River, and drinking a bowl of Coke Sprite on a three-volt day was much better than the current Coke Sprite. Why beijingers pay attention to everything, it is because the degree of eating and wearing of Beijingers is almost always solved in the century-old number, so the quality and reputation remain unchanged for a hundred years.
