The Summer Pot of Mung Bean Soup
At the neighborhood grain shop, the clerk keeps mung beans in a deep bin near the door. I watch her reject the split, dusty ones before she folds the green beans into a square paper parcel.
Green beans near the shop door
The bin is opened most often when the weather turns hot. The clerk runs the scoop through the beans, pauses over a pale stone, and flicks it into a tin beneath the counter. The parcel is cool and dense in my hand on the walk home.
In the kitchen, mung beans announce themselves by changing shape. At first they roll hard against the pot. Later the skins wrinkle and a few centers show. I lift the lid only enough to see that change, then return it while the room grows warmer.
The covered pot through the afternoon
A neighbor who visits in the heat is offered a bowl before tea. She moves it away from the sunny side of the table and talks while it cools. Another bowl stays covered for the family member still outside.
Sour-plum drink arrives darker and sharper. Winter-melon tea sits in a jar, while water chestnut and sugarcane require peeling and cracking at the sink. The mung-bean pot asks for a grain scoop, a lid, and a place to wait.
The last beans at the bottom
The final serving is thicker because more beans settle near the base. I scrape them gently into the bowl rather than thinning the whole pot.
By evening the empty parcel has been folded small beside the shop receipt. The pot dries on the rack with a faint green line around its rim.