Lychee sparkling water, three ways
The unsweetened infusion, the syrup, and the ratio that makes the finished drink.
In season: May to July fresh. Canned in syrup year round, and canned lychee is its own flavour that some people are specifically after.
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Infused, unsweetened
Use
15 fresh lychees, peeled and pitted, per 1 litre
Method
Peel, pit, tear each one in half with your fingers, into cold still water, straight into the fridge. Peeled lychee browns within an hour on the counter and the browning takes the perfume with it.
Time
4 hours. Past 8 the floral note fades off and what is left is a flat sweetness.
Sparkling
Still water for the steep, top after straining.
Keeps
2 days refrigerated with the fruit pulled at 4 hours.
The syrup
Ratio
2 cups peeled and pitted lychees : 1 cup sugar, no added water
Method
Blend the lychees, strain the juice through muslin, stir the sugar in cold until it dissolves. Sweet and concentrated like any syrup, with no heat at any point.
Keeps
1 week refrigerated, 4 months frozen. Short keeper because there is no cooking step, so freeze whatever you will not drink inside the week.
Note
The cold stir is deliberate. Whatever makes lychee smell like lychee is fragile, and about five minutes at a simmer turns fresh lychee into canned lychee.
The finished soda
1 part syrup to 4 parts sparkling water, over ice, small squeeze of lime
Lychee is sweet and shapeless on its own. Lime or rosewater gives it an edge to sit on. Rosewater goes in by the drop and three drops is plenty for a glass.
What doesn't work: Using the syrup out of a can of lychees as your syrup. It is sugar water that has been in a room with lychees, and once it is in the glass no amount of lime rescues it. If canned is what you have, drain the fruit, blend that, and pour the can syrup away.
Goes with: LimePassionfruitMintElderflower