According to the Collected Statutes of the Great Qing (Daqing huidian), the Forbidden City had five ice cellars, storing up to 25,000 chunks of ice harvested in winter. These 1.5-metre-deep cellars effectively kept food cold. In summer, they prevented fresh food from spoiling and could be used to make ice desserts, like the sour plum drink, sharbat, ice bowl (a mix of chilled fruits, lotus roots, water chestnuts, etc.), and melon with lotus roots (a chilled dessert of newly picked and sliced lotus root tips with seedless melon pulp).