Seven Regional Hot Pot Flavours in One Box | 一盒七种地域风味：把中国火锅的七条味觉路线一次试遍

Walk into any Chinese supermarket in Britain and you will meet the same wall. A whole shelf, sometimes two, of hot pot bases: deep red packages, orange packages, packets with a pepper on them, packets with a mountain on them, packets in a script you do not read and a naming system that assumes you already know the answer. You came in wanting a nice hot pot on a cold evening. You leave with the one you bought last time, because at least you know what that one does.

That is the real barrier, and it is not cooking. Anyone can boil a pot of stock and drop mushrooms into it. The hard part is choosing. Red oil is only the postcard version of Chinese hot pot. Behind that single image sits an enormous range: numbing pepper broths from Chongqing, fermented sour broths from the mountains of Guizhou, sweet-sour tomato broths that children drink straight from the bowl, aromatic lemongrass broths drawn in from Thailand, cold skewer dressings, dry dipping powders from Yunnan. These are not variations on one theme. They are closer to different cuisines that happen to share a table and a pot.

Which creates a genuinely awkward situation if you are curious. To find out which one you love, you would normally have to buy seven packages, cook seven dinners, and discover somewhere around the fifth that you do not actually like the one you keep buying. That is a slow and slightly expensive way to learn your own taste.

This is where a mixed set earns its place. The Autumn Hot Pot Base Bundle — Classic Mixed Flavors puts all seven routes in one box at £69, saving £16.41 (around 19%) against buying the same items separately. It is the difference between deciding in a shop and tasting over an autumn. If you have been putting off the question of where to buy hot pot base in the UK because every option looks equally unfamiliar, this is the version of that question that answers itself.

Seven flavours is not seven packets of the same thing

There is a reasonable worry here. Seven bases sounds like seven bags of chilli oil with different labels. It is not. What you are actually getting is seven separate flavour routes — seven different ways a broth can be built, each one coming from a different food tradition and each one landing somewhere different on your tongue.

Roughly, the map looks like this. There is the numbing route, where a pepper provides a buzzing, citrus-scented tingle rather than straight heat. There is the classic red-oil route, the one most people picture. There is the fermented route, where sourness comes from time and microbes rather than from vinegar or lemon — rounder, deeper, and much more savoury than the word "sour" suggests. There is the fruit route, sweet and gentle, where tomato does the work. There is the herbal South-East Asian route, built on lemongrass and lime leaf. There is the cold route, a dressing designed for skewers eaten at room temperature, which also happens to work as a hot broth. And there is the dry route — not a broth at all, but a powder you dip cooked food into at the very end.

Buy them together and you are not stocking up on hot pot. You are running a tasting across a whole season, one route at a time, until one of them turns out to be yours. That is a different purchase entirely, and it is the one worth making.

The seven, one at a time

Here is what each one actually is, what it tastes like in a real pot, and the moment in the week when it tends to get reached for.

1. Chongqing Green Sichuan Pepper Hot Pot Base — 50g × 10

Start here if you think you know what Chinese heat means. Green Sichuan pepper is not about burn. It is about ma, a light electrical hum across the lips and tongue, and this one carries a bright, almost citrus perfume that rides above the oil. Ten individual 50g packs means you can cook a small pot without committing a whole evening's stock to it. It is the base I reach for when the weather has turned properly cold and I want something that feels alive in the mouth rather than merely hot. Not the easiest first hot pot — the tingle takes some people one or two sittings to enjoy — but the one people tend to become quietly obsessed with. Available on its own as Chongqing-style green Sichuan pepper hot pot base if you only want this route.

2. Mini Hot Pot Soup Base — 360g (90g × 4 blocks)

This is the practical one, and honestly the one that gets used most in a British kitchen. It comes as four separately wrapped blocks, so you break off exactly what you need. One block, one small pot, one or two people, no leftovers and no waste. It is the base for a Tuesday night when you are cooking for yourself and do not want a project — a handful of mushrooms, some tofu, a bundle of greens, one block, twenty minutes. If you live alone, or if you are the only hot pot enthusiast in your household, this is the format that makes the habit sustainable. It is also the gentlest introduction to a proper Chinese broth if you have guests who are nervous. See the single-serve mini hot pot soup base.

3. Guizhou Red Sour Soup Base — 68g × 6

This is the one that surprises people. The sourness in Guizhou red sour soup comes from fermented tomatoes and chillies, not from vinegar, and the result is a rounded, savoury tang with real depth underneath it. The broth goes a clear, bright orange-red in the pot. It is appetite-opening in the way a good pickle is — it makes you want a second bowl rather than a glass of water. It is my pick for a long, slow dinner where the pot stays on the table for two hours, because the flavour keeps giving instead of flattening out. Six sachets means you can serve it several times over the season. The Guizhou old-jar fermented red sour soup is the same route in a larger jar if it becomes a favourite.

4. Tomato Hot Pot Base — 80g × 5

Completely not spicy, sweet-sour, and the broth is genuinely drinkable straight from the bowl. If you have never made a Chinese hot pot at home, this is where to begin — not because it is a compromise, but because it is the most forgiving thing in the box. Children eat it. People who claim they cannot handle spice eat it. It pairs beautifully with noodles, and the leftovers the next morning are better than they have any right to be. I keep one for the nights when someone at the table has a low tolerance and I do not want to cook two dinners. The tangy tomato hot pot base is the same idea sold individually.

5. Sichuan Bobo Chicken Chilli Broth Base — 360g × 2

Bobo chicken is a street food from Sichuan: skewers of cooked food plunged into a chilled, deeply savoury chilli broth and eaten standing up. The base here is that dressing. Mixed and left to cool, it is a cold dipping bath for skewers of blanched vegetables, tofu and mushrooms — one of the most enjoyable things you can put on a table for people to pick at. Warmed up with more water, it becomes a thoroughly good hot pot broth too, which is unusual for a dressing-style base. Two tubs means you can do one cold and one hot from the same box and compare. The Sichuan street-style bobo chilli broth base is the standalone listing.

6. Thai Tom Yum Hot Pot Soup Base — 200g × 3

Worth being clear about this one, because it is the odd item in the box and that is exactly why it belongs. Tom yum is Thai, not Chinese. It is here because Chinese hot pot tables have absorbed it: the same shared-pot format, the same dunk-and-eat rhythm, filled with lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime leaf. It is sharp, aromatic and sour-spicy in a way that has nothing to do with Sichuan pepper — herbal rather than numbing, bright rather than deep. Three 200g pouches. This is the base for a Friday when you want something that tastes like a holiday rather than a winter, and it works with mushrooms and noodles better than almost anything else in the set. Sold separately as Thai tom yum hot pot soup base.

7. Dan Shan Zhan Shui Yunnan Chilli Dip — 15g × 20

Not a broth. This is a dry dipping powder from Yunnan, the seasoning you shake cooked food into before it reaches your mouth. Twenty small sachets, each enough for one sitting, so nothing goes stale and you can take one to a friend's house. It is the finishing touch that makes a plain poached prawn or a slice of tofu taste like something that came off a grill. More on how it works below, because the dry dip is the single most misunderstood piece of equipment on a hot pot table. The full-size Yunnan highland chilli dipping powder is there if you want a bigger format.

The comparison table you actually need

This is the part worth printing. Seven flavours, one sheet, so you can look at the pot in front of you and know what you are getting. Heat and sourness are scored out of five. "Drink the broth" asks whether the liquid itself is pleasant on its own, which is a genuinely useful test when you are cooking for a mixed table.

Read it down the "who it suits" column and something useful happens: the seven routes stop being a list and become a decision tree. Cooking for two with a spice-averse partner? Tomato on one side, green pepper on the other. Feeding four people who all think they like heat? Sour soup, because it stays interesting for two hours. Want something that feels like a Friday? Tom yum.

How to plan a flavour journey through the autumn

Seven bases bought in one go can become one very fast, very repetitive month — or one genuinely enjoyable season. The difference is pacing. My suggestion is roughly one flavour per week, in an order that starts soft and gets more demanding, and with the side dishes changed alongside the broth so the two do not become the same meal seven times over.

• Week one — Tomato. The warm-up. Cook it plainly: tomato broth, a pack of noodles, greens, fresh tofu, enoki mushrooms. No chilli, no technique. This is the week you learn how a hot pot evening actually runs — what to keep on the table, how fast things cook, how much food two people really eat.
• Week two — Mini hot pot base. Same format, smaller pot, more savoury. Keep the vegetable list but swap in king oyster mushrooms and a block of frozen tofu, which soaks up broth like a sponge. This is the test of whether hot pot becomes a regular habit for you or a once-a-month treat.
• Week three — Bobo chilli broth. This one works particularly well cold. Blanch skewers of vegetables, tofu and mushrooms in the morning, chill both the food and the dressing, and eat it standing up in the evening. It is the least effort of the seven and the most sociable.
• Week four — Green Sichuan pepper. Move up a level. Keep the sides mild — greens, tofu skin, potatoes, plenty of noodles — so the numbing tingle is the only new thing on the table. Do not stack other chillies on top of it the first time.
• Week five — Red sour soup. The long dinner. Set the pot on the table, keep it at a low simmer, and add food in waves rather than all at once. This is the one to invite people to.
• Week six — Tom yum. Finish the tour with the outlier. Mushrooms, noodles, greens, and a squeeze of fresh lime at the end if you have one.

That is six sittings across six weeks, and the seventh item — the Yunnan dry dip — runs through all of them as a side act. By the end you will not have a vague sense that "I quite like hot pot." You will know precisely which route you would buy a large format of, and why. That knowledge is what the box is really for, and it is not something a shelf of unfamiliar packets can give you.

The split pot is the fastest taste test there is

If you would rather not spread this over six weeks, there is a shortcut, and it happens to be the traditional Chinese solution to a table of people who disagree: the split pot. A 5.5L divided pot takes two different bases at once, one on each side, separated by a metal wall. Same hotplate, same meal, two completely different broths.

What makes it such a good method is the control. You cook the same food in both sides, at the same time, with the same dipping sauce, and taste them side by side while the comparison is still warm in your mouth. A mushroom poached in tomato broth and the identical mushroom poached in green Sichuan pepper broth taste like two unrelated ingredients — and you will know within one mouthful which one you want a second bowl of, without waiting a week to find out. Do sour soup against tom yum and you learn what fermented tang and herbal tang actually are. Do bobo broth warm on one side and chilled on the other and you find out why Sichuan does both.

A good first pairing for anyone new to this: tomato on one side, red sour soup on the other. Both are gentle, both are drinkable, and the difference between sweet-sour and fermented-sour is the single most useful thing to learn early, because it calibrates everything else. Once you know which of those two you reach for, the rest of the box sorts itself out — you will know whether you are a fruit-and-brightness person or a depth-and-fermentation person, and every other flavour will land on one side of that line or the other.

The practical points. Fill the divided pot a little at a time and add to each side separately, because the two broths will reduce at different rates. Keep two serving spoons, one per side, so you do not drift tomato into the pepper side. Start both sides at the same low simmer so neither one gets ahead. And put the split pot on the table rather than the hob if you can — the whole point is to keep tasting, and that means the pot stays where the people are. This is also the reason a hot pot kit for UK homes tends to include the split pot rather than a single-pot model: comparison is the entire exercise.

Dipping: what the Yunnan dry dip is for

Dipping is where most home hot pot goes slightly wrong, and it is worth two minutes of explanation because it changes the food more than any other single thing on the table.

There are two families of dip. Wet sauces — sesame paste, fermented bean curd, chilli oil, garlic, soy — are built in a small bowl before you start eating. Their job is to coat. You pull something out of the pot, drag it through, and it comes out wearing a new layer of savoury richness. Dry dips are different. There is no liquid involved. You take the food straight from the broth, shake it in the powder, and eat it immediately, before the coating can turn to paste.

The Yunnan dry dip in this set is exactly that: a toasted chilli and sesame powder, portioned into twenty 15g sachets, one per sitting. The instinct with a dry dip — especially if you are used to wet sauces — is to treat it as a stronger version of the same thing and bury the food in it. Resist that. A dry dip is not there to cover the broth. It is there to add a layer on top of it. The broth has already flavoured the food; what the powder contributes is texture and a warm roasted-chilli fragrance on the surface, and it works precisely because you can still taste what is underneath.

So use it sparingly, and use it on the things that carry it best: slices of firm tofu, pieces of potato, blanched greens with a bit of body, noodles, mushrooms with a flat surface to hold the powder. It is particularly good beside the tomato base, where the sweet-sour broth and the roasted chilli powder are doing genuinely different jobs, and beside the sour soup, where the powder adds a dry heat that the broth does not have. Keep it in a small dish next to the pot rather than in your own bowl, so everyone dips their own and no one ends up with more chilli than they wanted.

The two-family distinction also settles a false argument about authenticity. Some tables are all wet sauces; some are all dry. Both are traditional, in different regions, for different food. Having one of each on the table is not a compromise — it is just two tools.

A note on meat and seafood

Traditional Chinese hot pot is a meat-forward meal, and any honest description of it should say so. Thin-sliced beef, lamb, pork, chicken, prawns, squid, white fish, all raw on the table, all cooked in the broth. That is how the meal is usually built, and the broths in this box are designed to stand up to it.

Which is the point at which we should be completely straightforward about what this box is and is not. mixdiff sells hot pot bases, sauces, cookware and tableware, and nothing else. We do not sell meat, poultry, seafood, or any fresh produce. There is no chiller involved and no cold chain, which is exactly why the bases travel as well as they do. The meat and seafood side of the meal is left to your local supermarket or fishmonger, and that is not an inconvenience so much as an advantage: you buy it fresh, on the day, in the cut you actually want, from someone who knows the fish counter better than we ever will.

What the broth does is give you somewhere excellent to put it. If you pick up sliced beef from the supermarket on the way home and simmer it in the green Sichuan pepper base for twenty seconds, you have made a very good version of a very traditional meal, and the only part of it that travelled was the part that needed to.

The vegetable side of a hot pot table deserves more attention than it usually gets, and everything here works with it. Mushrooms of every kind — enoki, shiitake, king oyster, oyster — because they carry broth into the bite. Firm and silken tofu, tofu skin, frozen tofu, which behaves differently again. Chinese cabbage, pak choi, spinach, water spinach in season, chrysanthemum greens if you can find them, a handful of bean sprouts for crunch at the end. Lotus root and sliced potato for the people who want something substantial. Noodles last, always, cooked in the reduced broth at the moment when the pot is at its most flavoured — that final bowl of noodles in a well-used sour soup base is arguably the most rewarding part of the whole meal.

If a pot is built from those things, the broths become the entire story rather than a supporting act, and you will notice the differences between the seven far more clearly than you would with a table covered in strong meats.

Storing the box

These are concentrated bases, which makes them unusually easy to keep. Unopened, they sit happily at room temperature in a cupboard — no refrigerator space required, which is a real consideration when seven items arrive at once. Once a packet or tub is opened, follow the instructions printed on that individual pack, which in practice means reclosing it and storing it chilled and using it reasonably soon.

The split packs are where the design earns its keep. The mini hot pot base is four separate blocks, so you open one and leave the rest sealed. The green Sichuan pepper base is ten 50g sachets. The sour soup is six sachets, the tomato five, the tom yum three pouches. Only the bobo broth comes as two larger tubs. In nearly every case you open exactly what you are about to use, which means the rest stays as it was. The Yunnan dry dip is twenty individual 15g sachets, so the powder never has a chance to clump or lose its aroma — you tear one open at the table, use it, and the other nineteen are untouched.

A practical rhythm for the season: keep the unopened box in the cupboard, and move only the current week's packet to wherever you keep everyday cooking things. When the last sachet of a flavour is gone, that is your cue that you have tried it, and you will already know whether you want a larger format of it.

Is the box worth it?

Here is the arithmetic, plainly, because it is the only sensible way to answer the question.

The bundle is £69 and contains seven items:

• Chongqing Green Sichuan Pepper Hot Pot Base — 50g × 10 sachets
• Mini Hot Pot Soup Base — 360g (90g × 4 blocks)
• Guizhou Red Sour Soup Base — 68g × 6 sachets
• Tomato Hot Pot Base — 80g × 5
• Sichuan Bobo Chicken Chilli Broth Base — 360g × 2 tubs
• Thai Tom Yum Hot Pot Soup Base — 200g × 3
• Dan Shan Zhan Shui Yunnan Chilli Dip — 15g × 20 sachets

Bought separately, the same items come to £85.41. The bundle is £69. That is a saving of £16.41, or about 19%. You are not paying extra for the convenience of a mixed set; the mixed set is the cheaper way to buy these seven things.

But the number is not really the argument. The argument is what you get for the money, which is not stock for a month — it is information about your own taste. Seven routes, tasted at your own pace across an autumn, with enough of each to try it twice and change your mind. At the end you will know the answer to a question that the supermarket shelf cannot answer for you: which one is mine? Buying a single large tub of the wrong base costs you a whole winter of the wrong dinners. Buying this box costs you £69 and gets you the right answer.

Put another way: this is roughly the price of one restaurant hot pot dinner for two, and instead of one evening you get six or seven, plus the knowledge needed to make every hot pot you cook for the rest of the year better. If you have been searching for a hot pot kit UK buyers actually keep cooking with, the test of that is whether it survives past the first evening. Seven distinct flavours is what makes that likely here — there is always one more to try.

The bundle

If you would rather start with one route rather than all seven, each item is sold on its own:

• Chongqing Green Sichuan Pepper Hot Pot Base — £7.49 / £13.99
• Mini Hot Pot Soup Base, single serve — £9.98 / £25.99
• Yu Meng Guizhou Red Sour Soup, old-jar fermented 500ml — £7.99
• Tomato Hot Pot Base — £5.99 / £12.99
• Sichuan Bobo Chicken Chilli Broth Base — £8.99 / £16.99
• Thai Tom Yum Hot Pot Soup Base, 200g — £14.99
• Dan Shan Zhan Shui Yunnan Chilli Dip — £6.99 / £29.99

Browse the full Autumn Home Hot Pot collection, or the wider range of hot pot bases if you already know which route you are after. For anyone asking where to buy hot pot base in the UK with a delivery that actually reaches a British address, ordering from here means picking the flavours individually — or taking the box and trying them all.

Where to get it

Orders ship air freight direct from China to the UK and arrive in 8–12 calendar days. Shipping is free on UK orders of £59 and over, so the £69 bundle qualifies on its own, and a single base plus a dip will usually get you there too.

An autumn is about eight to ten weeks. Seven flavours is one a week with time to go back to the one you liked. Pick the box up when the weather turns, work through it as the evenings draw in, and by the time winter arrives you will have a house favourite — plus the other six to fall back on when you want something different. That is the whole idea: one box, seven routes, one season to find out which is yours.

If you have been looking for where to buy hot pot base in the UK and never quite known which packet to pick, this is the version where you do not have to decide in advance. Buy hot pot base in the UK as a set, cook your way through it at your own pace, and let the pot tell you the answer.