Chuantongzhitangjiyi
01 · Historical Records
In the 1950s Yiting Town was known far and wide as the "home of brown sugar", contributing to the local sugarcane economy. According to the Genealogy of the Jia Clan of Yanli Village, Yangchuan, the old method of boiling sugar in the villages around Yiting can be traced back to the Shunzhi reign of the Qing dynasty; over four hundred years the sugar workshops were established village by village and worked day and night throughout the pressing season. In the 1950s Yiting Town became widely known for the sheer volume of its sugar output, and the sugar carriers' trade, together with local festivals and New Year gifts, carried on this craft, so that brown sugar travelled from the fields and stove rooms all the way to distant markets.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Yiwu brown sugar-making technique is a traditional handicraft that uses the green-skinned sugarcane grown locally in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, as raw material, extracting the cane juice with a wooden press driven by oxen and boiling the brown sugar in iron cauldrons. It originated in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, and is mainly practised in Yiting Town, Fotang Town and their surrounding areas, with influence radiating across the Jiangnan region of China. The products of the Yiwu brown sugar-making technique are mainly traditional Yiwu brown sugar together with derivatives such as brown-sugar fried dough twists and brown-sugar flaky pastries. The old-method Yiwu brown sugar-making technique is divided into four main stages, selecting materials, pressing juice, boiling and air-drying, and comprises more than 20 process steps. Each process step must be judged and controlled by the sugar-maker on the basis of practical experience, by observing the colour, feeling with the hand, tasting and testing with the tongue. Yiwu brown sugar made by this technique has a sweet, mellow taste and a fine, smooth texture. The Yiwu brown sugar-making technique has a long history: according to the Genealogy of the Jia Clan of Yanli Village, Yangchuan, the old method of making Yiwu brown sugar can be traced back to the Shunzhi reign of the Qing dynasty and has a history of more than 400 years. The Yiwu brown sugar-making technique is one of China's traditional cane-sugar-making techniques and is closely bound up with local traditional customs and residents' daily life.
Archival Record of Process Steps
The old-method Yiwu brown sugar-making technique is divided into four main stages, selecting materials, pressing juice, boiling and air-drying, and comprises more than 20 process steps. Each process step must be judged and controlled by the sugar-maker on the basis of practical experience, by observing the colour, feeling with the hand, tasting and testing with the tongue.
Extracting cane juice with a wooden press
Before boiling, the cane is crushed in a wooden press driven by an ox; the slow, moderate pressure yields juice low in impurities, which clarifies easily in the pan, so the old press is still kept in use.
Nine pans in a row and sediment-based boiling
Nine pans in one row are reheated in turn by the heat of their neighbours; the syrup is settled by density from pan to pan so scum rises and impurities sink, giving bright clean sugar judged by eye and by the sound of boiling.
Choosing cane around the Start of Winter
The green-skinned cane reaches its highest sugar content around the Start of Winter; cutting then gives sweet juice and a high yield, and missing that window means waiting another year.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The technique is characterised by the use of implements unique to it, the wooden sugar press, the sugar feed hopper and the plum-blossom stove (also called the single-line stove); by strict adherence to the natural solar terms, with work carried out around the Beginning of Winter, when the sugar cane (the locally produced green-skinned sugarcane) has a particularly high sugar content; and by special attention to the boiling stage, using the physical-sedimentation boiling method of the nine-pot linked stove. In Yiwu, brown sugar is not merely a condiment but a cultural symbol, carrying the local people's yearning for and pursuit of a better life. Around Yiting Town stretches of old sugar-workshop sites are still preserved, while Fotang Town and its surrounding villages carry on through household workshops, and today sugar-making workshops jointly built by villages and companies work alongside them. The whole set of implements, the wooden sugar press, the sugar feed hopper and the plum-blossom stove (single-line stove), is made according to local conditions; wherever there is a source of sugarcane and a place for a stove, a stove can be set up without any outside technique.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years the local government has strengthened protection of the old-method Yiwu brown sugar-making technique; at present the heritage item is transmitted mainly within families, and inheritance centres and sugar-making workshops have been built in Xilou Village, Xiantian Village and other places in Yiting Town. The transmission and development of this technique not only helps to protect and promote fine traditional Chinese culture and folk customs, but has also made an important contribution to local economic and social development.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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