Apricots and Almonds

Not quite what my canister looks like, but close.

The same day I purchased a box of Green Max almond powder and downed two cups of hot almond tea, not an hour passed but I sat down to read Lao She's memoir and came across Beijingers selling and drinking the same drink ca. 1898 in the city.

Our American and European almonds are, I suppose, a related species, Prunus dulcis. The Chinese xingren is actually Prunus armeniaca, aka the apricot. So it's the pit of the apricot. Apparently Italian amaretto is actually made from the same substance.

One more note, I'll try to translate from Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica," section one on fruits, on the apricot xing 杏. He says,

The pit of the apricot can loosen 散 and lessen 降, and so has the following healing and medicinal properties: the separation of flesh, the scattering of wind, the lessening of qi, the moisturizing of the throat (?) and alleviation of accumulated (accumulated what? another medical expression I don't understand). 杏仁能散能降，故解肌、散风、降气、润燥、消积，治伤损药中用之。