It’s Dragon Boat Festival yesterday. I hope everyone of you had a happy Dragon Boat Festival! Local people do many things for the festival. For example, we hold dragon boat race. We eat rice dumplings, salted duck eggs, spring rolls (picture one), steamed garlic, waxberries, loquats and so on. We drink waxberry wine which was usually made last year. The waxberries in the pictures below were picked from our own waxberry trees(picture two).

We have several waxberry trees near our old house which is located in the suburbs. A neighbour of ours planted those trees on our fields. Later on, when we got back the fields, our neighbour gave the waxberry trees to us. Waxberrry trees porduce fruit every June and July.Waxberries taste sweet , sour and can help digest food.They also can be used to make waxberry wine,waxberry conserves,jams or dried waxberries. My family almost makes waxberry wine every year which is helpful to prevent sunstroke in summer.I haven’t made the wine so I asked my mother about the steps.They are as follows. First of all,prepare a glass jar.Buy some fresh waxberries.Choose firm and red ones.Purplish red waxberries are ok too and they usually taste sweeter.If there are small worms on the surface of waxberries,remove the worms and clean the waxberries. Wash the waxberries with white spirits a bit .

Secondly,place the waxberries lightly into the glass jar.Add some white sugar or rock candy to them. If you want waxberry wine to be sweeter,you can add more sugar. The amount of sugar depends on your personal preference. Then prepare a bottle of high-quality white spirits.Pour the white spirits into the jar until the waxberries are covered or till the jar is full to the brim.The point is to cover waxberries with white spirits.Finally,put on a lid and seal the jar.Leave it in a cool and dry place.Avoid direct sunlight.Normally,it takes about three months to make the wine. The longer,the better.

I like waxberry wine very much although I drink alcohol very little.I usually eat a waxberry and take a sip of the wine before I go outside in scorching hot weather in summer.It protects me from heatstroke.I love the sweet flavour of waxberry wine as well. Though waxberry wine not only has a great taste but also is beneficial to health, we are not supposed to drink too much at a time! It is strong!