Alongside iced tea and lime soda, nam gek huay (น้ำเก๊กฮวย) is one of the three drinks you will find in nearly every Thai food court. It is pale gold, gently floral, and served over a great deal of ice.
Where the name comes from
Gek huay is a Teochew Chinese term, carried into Thailand with Chinese migration and thoroughly naturalised since. The drink is Chinese in origin and Thai in the way it is now made and sold — sweeter, colder, and in far bigger glasses than its ancestor.
Simmered, not steeped
This is the point most home versions get wrong. Dried chrysanthemum heads are dense and papery, and a short steep in a mug gives you pale, thin water. Thai vendors simmer them, which is what produces the deeper gold colour and the rounder flavour.
For about 1 litre
- Use roughly 15g of dried flowers — a large handful — to 1 litre of water.
- Bring to the boil, then drop to a low simmer.
- Simmer 10–15 minutes. The water turns from straw to a clear amber-gold.
- Strain thoroughly. The spent flowers hold a lot of liquid, so press them gently.
- Sweeten while hot, if you are sweetening it at all.
Unlike leaf teas, pushing chrysanthemum longer does not make it bitter so much as flat — the delicate floral top note cooks off. Fifteen minutes is about the ceiling.
How sweet is authentic?
Sweeter than most people outside Thailand expect. Street versions are frankly sugary, usually with rock sugar or palm sugar dissolved into the hot infusion.
There is a practical reason beyond taste: the drink is served over so much ice that melt-water dilutes it substantially within a few minutes. What tastes slightly too sweet hot is about right by the time the glass is half empty.
If you would rather not use sugar, add a dried stevia leaf to the pan for the last few minutes of simmering — it needs the heat to give anything up. Start with one leaf; stevia is far stronger than its size suggests.
Serving it iced
Simmer at closer to 20g per litre if the destination is a glass of ice, sweeten while hot, then chill thoroughly before pouring. Building it over ice while still warm melts the ice immediately and gives you something watery.
What it tastes like
Soft, floral and faintly honeyed, with a slight dry edge at the finish that stops it being cloying. It is far gentler than jasmine and has none of the perfume-like intensity people sometimes brace for. If rose tea is too floral for you, chrysanthemum usually is not.
Dried Thai chrysanthemum → · How much to use → · Sweetening with stevia leaf →