Wampee

A Cantonese street habit: a pinch on the tart skin turns it savoury before it is sour.

Preserved whole in syrup, skin and all, which is how most of the crop is actually eaten.

Two citrus-family sours side by side; the wampee reads milder and grapier by comparison.

Warm root against a fruit whose bitterness sits mostly in the skin, not the flesh.

Salted dried-plum powder is the classic market dip for the raw fruit, pith and all.

Cooked down with the skins on, the bitterness turns into a syrup Guangdong still trusts for a cough.

Warm spice against citrus-pith bitterness in the syrup the whole cluster gets preserved in.

Grapey citrus pith is close enough to the botanicals to work macerated straight into the spirit.

Raw brine against sour citrus pith, a Cantonese answer to lemon on shellfish.