What is the difference between tiangua and xianggua, are they cooling or warming, and how much are they per jin?

We often hear both xianggua and tiangua in the market, so what is the difference between tiangua and xianggua? Are they cooling or warming? How much are they per jin? According to relevant sources, xianggua and tiangua do indeed belong to the same fruit; the reason they are divided into two names is partly regional factors and partly related to the variety of tiangua.

Introduction to tiangua and xianggua

What is generally called xianggua is golden yellow, with patterns like a hot air balloon; tiangua is green plus yellow and round. Xianggua is the folk name for traditional thin-skinned tiangua, mainly in Northeast China, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places. Whether xianggua or tiangua, both are collective names for a melon group with the same type of characteristics. What they originally showed was a regional difference. The South has more moisture, a short growing period and insufficient light, so the melons and fruits produced there are rich in fragrance but not sweet enough, hence the name people habitually use is “xianggua”; the North is just the opposite, with a light fragrance and full sweetness, so it is called tiangua.

Tiangua: an annual climbing herb; the stem is covered with short bristles. Tendrils are not forked; the petiole has short bristles; the leaf blade is nearly round or kidney-shaped, 8-15 cm in both length and width, with 3-7 shallow lobes, soft hairs on both sides, short bristles on the veins beneath, and serrated edges. Monoecious; male flowers often clustered several together, female flowers solitary; calyx lobes subulate, corolla yellow, lobes ovate-oblong, acute, about 2 cm long; stamens 3, anther cells S-shaped and curved, connective apex elongated; ovary oblong, style extremely short, stigma 3, close together. The shape and color of the fruit vary by variety, it is fragrant, and the rind is smooth; seeds are dirty white. It has many varieties, and the fruit varies greatly; it can be divided into several variants, and horticulturally can be assigned to several lines, among which cai gua, Hami melon and bailan melon each also belong to different variants or lines. The fruit is used as fruit or vegetable; the melon stem and seeds are used medicinally.

Xianggua, the fruit of a plant in the Cucurbitaceae family, is fleshy, with many chambers and many seeds, very similar to a berry, but the receptacle and exocarp of these fruits fuse together, often forming a thick outer skin, and in classification it is specifically called a “melon fruit”.

The names xianggua and tiangua differ by only one character, but they have different identities. For melons produced in the North, in order to prevent them from splitting after ripening due to too much sugar, the outer skin of the melon is generally thicker; while melons produced in the South do not have enough sugar and are not easy to split, so the melon skin is thinner; this is natural selection. Later people recognized this and called the thick-skinned melon tiangua and the thin-skinned one xianggua.

Whether xianggua or tiangua, both are collective names for a melon group with the same type of characteristics. What they originally showed was a regional difference. The South has more moisture, a short growing period and insufficient light, so the melons and fruits produced there are rich in fragrance but not sweet enough, hence the name people habitually use is “xianggua”; the North is just the opposite, with a light fragrance and full sweetness, so it is called tiangua.

Because during long-term cultivation by people, different melon types were crossed, more and more varieties of xianggua and tiangua were derived in both the North and the South, and coupled with developed artificial breeding technology, North-South melon crossing formed xianggua with increasingly comprehensive characteristics, striving to achieve both fragrance and sweetness to meet market demand. Thus, gradually, the regional differences between North and South melons were smoothed away in the process of crossbreeding, and greenhouse cultivation technology allowed Southern melons to be grown in the North and Northern melons in the South; nowadays, xianggua and tiangua can no longer be discussed separately.

Distribution range of tiangua and xianggua

Widely cultivated throughout China

(1) North China warm temperate semi-arid region, including the area south of the Inner Mongolia Plateau, north of the Qinling-Huaihe line, and east of the Yellow River in Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui.

(2) The middle and lower Yangtze River plum rain region, including Jiangsu, Anhui, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and other places.

(3) Northwest arid region, including Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and parts of Inner Mongolia west of the Yellow River loop.

(4) Northeast temperate semi-arid region, including Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and most of the Inner Mongolia Plateau.

(5) South China tropical multi-cropping region, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, and the Taiwan region.

(6) Southwest tropical humid region, including the three provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou. It is also widely cultivated in temperate to tropical regions of the world.

Xianggua originated in the tropical desert regions of Africa and was probably introduced to China along with watermelon around the Northern Wei period; it began to be widely planted in the Ming dynasty, and is commonly cultivated throughout China.

What varieties of tiangua and xianggua are there

Varieties of tiangua include Japanese Tianbao, Jingtian No. 5, horn melon, Tianmi Cuili, Xizhou Mi No. 25, Lu Hou Tian No. 1, crystal treasure, rock sugar crisp, Sweet No. 1, etc. Varieties of xianggua include Xiangfei, Chenglu, and Changxiangyu.

Nutritional value and effects of tiangua and xianggua

Tiangua contains nutrients such as protein, carbohydrates, carotene, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, niacin, calcium, phosphorus and iron, and also contains invertase, which can convert insoluble protein into soluble protein.

1. Tiangua contains a large amount of carbohydrates and citric acid, etc., and is full of water, so it can relieve summer heat and clear heat, promote body fluids and quench thirst, and remove restlessness;

2. The invertase in tiangua can convert insoluble protein into soluble protein and can help kidney patients absorb nutrients;

3. Cucurbitacin B in the melon stem of tiangua can protect the liver and reduce chronic liver injury;

4. Modern research has found that tiangua seeds have effects such as expelling and killing roundworms and filarial worms;

5. Tiangua is rich in nutrients and can supplement the energy and nutrients needed by the human body.

Xianggua flesh can be eaten raw, quenches thirst and clears dryness, and can eliminate bad breath, but the melon stem is toxic, and eating too much raw will cause poisoning. According to identification by relevant experts, all kinds of xianggua contain rich nutrients such as malic acid, glucose, amino acids, betaine, and vitamin C, and have very good curative effects on infectious high fever, thirst, etc.

Are tiangua and xianggua cooling or warming

Traditional Chinese medicine confirms that tiangua has the notable effects of “relieving summer heat, quenching irritability and thirst, and promoting urination”. Because tiangua is cold in nature, people with vomiting blood, coughing blood, duodenal and gastric ulcers, chronic enteritis, deficiency-cold of the spleen and stomach, cold accumulation with abdominal distension or abdominal pain and diarrhea, frequent urination, and heart disease should use it with caution or avoid it. Normally healthy people should not eat large amounts regularly either, because tiangua has a lot of water, and eating too much will dilute gastric juice in the stomach, injure the stomach and cause indigestion or abdominal pain and diarrhea.

Xianggua is a cooling fruit; it contains abundant water and is sweet and juicy, with the effect of promoting body fluids and quenching thirst. When we have a poor appetite in summer, we can choose to eat xianggua to increase appetite. Because xianggua is cold and cooling in nature, people with deficiency-cold of the spleen and stomach and pregnant women should not eat too much xianggua, so as to avoid harm to the body.

How much are tiangua and xianggua per jin

Precautions for eating xianggua

According to identification by relevant experts, all kinds of xianggua contain rich nutrients such as malic acid, glucose, amino acids, betaine, and vitamin C. To bring out the nutrition to the fullest, attention should be paid when eating, and care should be taken to avoid eating certain incompatible foods together. Foods incompatible with xianggua:

1. Xianggua cannot be eaten together with bitter melon or watermelon; people with weak constitutions will experience diarrhea after eating them.

2. Xianggua cannot be eaten together with iced summer drinks, because both are cold-natured foods, and eating them together is bad for the body; people with weak constitutions will have diarrhea after eating them.

3. Xianggua is also not suitable to be eaten together with strongly tonic medicinal meals, either before or after, as it will affect the efficacy of the medicinal meal.

4. Xianggua is also not suitable to be eaten together with durian; the two are incompatible, and eating them together will fail to achieve their respective effects.

5. Xianggua cannot be eaten together with coptis or drugs with equivalent effects; eating them together will cause severe diarrhea.

6. Xianggua is not suitable to be eaten together with field snails, crabs and other seafood.

7. Xianggua is also not suitable to be eaten together with greasy foods.