The haw is the small, tart red fruit of the hawthorn (Crataegus), a thorny rose-family tree — a true miniature pome, apple-like inside, no bigger than a cherry. Too sour and astringent to enjoy raw, it is transformed across two continents: candied on skewers as tanghulu and pressed into shanzha haw flakes in China, and boiled into clear hedgerow jelly in Europe.