Agar solution has been used in industry as a 'background' liquid material for the production of instant Edible Bird's Nest products. In this work, the rheological properties of agar solution were studied, especially the effect of shear rate, agar concentration and temperature, respectively, on the apparent viscosity of the agar solution. A HAAKE rotary viscometer was used. Results indicated that the agar solution exhibited shear-thinning behavior following the power law fluid model. Its apparent viscosity increased exponentially with an increase of solid concentration, and decreased with a rise of temperature. The independence of viscosity on temperature followed Arrhenius equation. Reasonable empirical correlations between the apparent viscosity of the agar solution for different temperatures, shear rates and different concentrations are proposed respectively. 漏 2012 De Gruyter.