Cheong (food)

Cheong (Korean: 청; Hanja: 淸) is a name for various sweetened foods in the form of syrups, marmalades, and fruit preserves. In Korean cuisine, cheong is used as a tea base, as a honey-or-sugar-substitute in cooking, as a condiment, and also as an alternative medicine to treat the common cold and other minor illnesses.

Originally, the word cheong (청; 淸) was used to refer to honey in Korean royal court cuisine. The name jocheong (조청; 造淸; "crafted honey") was given to mullyeot (liquid-form yeot) and other human-made honey-substitutes. Outside the royal court, honey was called kkul (꿀), which is a native Korean (non-Sino-Korean) word.