The leaves
Dried bamboo leaves, soaked overnight and simmered briefly so they turn supple and release that green, tea-like fragrance. We rinse each one by hand and reject any with splits — a torn leaf means a leaky zongzi.
Our story
Made by hand in a small London kitchen
ZongZong began with a simple frustration: every zongzi we could buy in London was frozen, and nothing like the ones from home. So we started wrapping our own.
The kitchen
A food workshop near Canary Wharf
Our kitchen is a registered food workshop a few minutes from Canary Wharf, on the east side of London. It is not a restaurant and it is not a factory: it is a set of steamers, long tables, and a routine that starts before the DLR does.
The day begins with the leaves that soaked overnight, then the rice, then the marinated pork. By mid-morning the first steamers are going and the whole street smells of bamboo leaf and soy. By early afternoon the boxes are packed and heading out across the city.
We chose to stay small on purpose. Every zongzi passes through a pair of hands, and the person who wrapped it could tell you whether the yolk sat straight and whether the string was tight enough.
Fresh, never frozen
Why freshness is the whole point
A zongzi is mostly rice, and glutinous rice is unforgiving. Freeze it and the starch crystallises; reheat it and you get a grainy centre with a soggy edge. The leaf aroma, which is the entire reason to wrap rice in a leaf, fades to almost nothing.
Steamed the same morning, the rice is glossy and gently chewy, the pork belly gives without a knife, and the salted yolk is sandy and rich rather than chalky. That difference is what we are selling. It is why our van only goes where it can get to you the same day — and why, for everyone else, we chill rather than freeze.
Leftovers keep in the fridge for three days and steam back to life beautifully. If you must freeze, do it yourself at home — a home freezer and a quick re-steam is kinder than a month in a shipping container.
Now posting nationwide
The same morning batch, chilled to your door
For years the answer to “do you post?” was no, because a frozen zongzi is not one we would put our name on. Then we found a way to keep our word: each one is steamed at dawn, cooled fast, vacuum-sealed in its leaf and packed with ice packs, then sent by tracked next-day courier. No preservatives, nothing frozen. Refrigerate it when it arrives, eat within 24 hours or freeze it yourself — it tastes of the leaf, not of the freezer.
How chilled post works3
days in the fridge, still excellent
0
zongzi ever frozen before delivery
Order by 6pm, steamed tomorrow morning
That gap is not laziness — it is the soak. Leaves and rice need the night.
Leaves, rice, marinade
Three ingredients that decide everything
The rice
Short-grain glutinous rice, soaked for hours until the grains are plump but still separate. For savoury zongzi we toss it in soy, rice wine and a little sugar; for sweet ones we leave it white so the filling can shine.
The marinade
Pork belly and rib sit overnight in light and dark soy, Shaoxing wine, ginger and a whisper of five spice. Nothing is pre-cooked to death: the meat finishes inside the leaf, so the juices go into the rice.
If you can taste the leaf, we did our job. If you can taste the freezer, we did not.
The signature
Meigancai, from Zhejiang to E14
Meigancai is mustard greens that have been salted, fermented and dried in the sun until they turn almost black and smell of molasses and hay. In Zhejiang it is the flavour of home cooking: steamed with pork belly, baked into flatbread, and — in some families — wrapped into zongzi.
Ours pairs the greens with bone-in pork rib and a whole chestnut. The rib gives a deeper, cleaner pork flavour than belly alone; the meigancai soaks up the fat and turns sweet and earthy; the chestnut softens everything. It is the zongzi people come back for, and the one we are proudest of.
We buy our meigancai from a single supplier in Zhejiang and rinse it three times before it goes anywhere near the rice. It should taste sweet and savoury, never gritty.
Our promise
What you can hold us to
Wrapped the morning we deliver
Nothing is made ahead and reheated. Your order is wrapped, steamed and packed on the day.
Never frozen
We would rather post a box chilled, sealed the morning it was steamed, than ever freeze one. Outside London that is exactly what we do.
Honest about ingredients
Full allergen lists on every product, real answers on email, and a kitchen that tells you when something has sold out.
Something not right with an order? Email us and a person will reply, usually the same day. Contact us
Taste the difference
Steamed tomorrow morning, at your door by evening.
Start with the Classic Trio and the meigancai rib. Six or more, any mix you like.