Gorgon Nut Sweet Soup 鸡头米糖水
Gorgon Nut Sweet Soup is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.
Gorgon Nut Sweet Soup (鸡头米糖水) is a Suzhou (苏州) summer soup made from gorgon nut, the seed of a water plant of the water-lily family, which Suzhou counts among its eight water vegetables, the shui baxian (水八仙).
The gorgon nut
Gorgon nut is the seed of the gorgon plant, Euryale ferox, a large water plant of the water-lily family. The seed goes by the names qianshi (芡实), qianmi (芡米) and jitoumi (鸡头米), literally chicken-head rice. The kernel contains starch, protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus and iron, and the thickening starch that Chinese cooks call qianfen (芡粉) originally meant powdered gorgon nut.
Besides the sweet soup, the kernel is made into gorgon-nut congee and gorgon-nut cakes. Made into a soup in summer, it is taken, like mung-bean soup, to keep off the heat.
Where it comes from
China News Service describes the Suzhou crop as a fine southern variety, Su qian (苏芡), with a long history of cultivation. The Ming-dynasty Gusu Gazetteer (姑苏志) describes the plant's leaves as like lotus leaves but larger and explains the nickname chicken head: its shape resembles a chicken's head. It adds that the nuts from Wujiang (吴江) have thin green shells and a rich taste, while those from Chefang (车坊) in the old Changzhou county (长洲) are yellow.
Today the core growing areas are the towns of Luzhi (甪直), Hengjing (横泾) and Linhu (临湖) in Wuzhong (吴中) district and Tongli (同里) in Wujiang district, with more planted in Xiangcheng (相城), Suzhou Industrial Park and Changshu (常熟). Growers favour soft-shelled varieties for eating fresh, such as the purple-flowered Su qian, known for large, soft, glutinous kernels with a clean fragrance.
The harvest peaks in late summer and continues into early October. Every nut is shelled by hand, so the work takes many hands; at traditional markets such as Fengmen Hengjie (葑门横街) in the old city, many buyers take home more than ten kilograms at once and keep them refrigerated to use through the year.
Questions before you order
When is the gorgon nut harvested in Suzhou?
The main harvest is under way by mid-August and continues into early October; bought in bulk and refrigerated, the nuts are eaten all year.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.