原汁原味
yuán zhī yuán wèi · HSK 7
authentic
🍲 原 = origin/source + 汁 = juice + 原 = origin + 味 = flavor: source-juice, source-flavor = the real deal
Doubling 原 (origin) across both 汁 (juice) and 味 (taste) hammers home authenticity: nothing added, nothing swapped. Used for food kept true to its source and, by extension, anything genuine and unaltered.
原 — cliff 厂 + spring 泉 (white 白 + water 水)
Originally a pictograph showing a spring of water flowing out from beneath a cliff, depicting the source of a stream. From this concrete image of a water source, the meaning extended to 'origin,' 'source,' and 'original.' A separate character 源 was later created with the water radical 氵 to keep the literal 'spring' sense.
汁 — water radical 氵 + ten 十
A semantic-phonetic compound. The water radical 氵 signals a liquid, while 十 (originally read with a sound close to zhī) provides the phonetic cue. Together they denote sap or juice — any liquid squeezed from a plant or food.
原 — cliff 厂 + spring 泉 (white 白 + water 水)
Originally a pictograph showing a spring of water flowing out from beneath a cliff, depicting the source of a stream. From this concrete image of a water source, the meaning extended to 'origin,' 'source,' and 'original.' A separate character 源 was later created with the water radical 氵 to keep the literal 'spring' sense.