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Soybean cooked with aniseed
Soybean cooked with aniseed is a kind of food for wine drinking
in almost all wine pubs in Shaoxing. Cooked with aniseed, the
soybean looks yellow and green and its surface looks wrinkled.
Flavored soybean is soft but takes time to chew. The soybean
cooked with aniseed acquired its everlasting popularity in China
thanks to Kong Yiji, a short story by Lu Xun. The story immortalizes
not only the figure but also the food. Now this traditional
soybean is a souvenir popular with tourists. Even foreign tourists
will come to the Xianheng Pub after a visit to the nearby Lu
Xun Memorial to sip Shaoxing wine and taste the soybean so as
to experience the life depicted in the story. |
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Orchid
Shaoxing is home to orchids. The town cultivates a great variety
of orchids with various shapes, colors, and fragrances. One
orchid can make a room fragrant for a long time. The traditional
orchids include ¡°Laimei¡±, ¡°Anhai¡±, ¡°Huanqiuheding¡±, and ¡°Butterfly¡±.
The rare Green Cloud orchid is under the state protection. Orchids
produced in Shaoxing, wonders in the eyes of florists at home,
sell well on the national market. The rare flowers are also
exported in large quantity to Japan and countries in southeast
Asia. Orchid is now Shaoxing¡¯s city flower. |
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Dried Vegetable
Mustard, cabbage and other vegetables can be dried. Most of
these dried vegetables are home made. It is made this way: first
dry the vegetable and let it go yellow, and then salt it before
put the pickled the vegetable into a jar for storage. The finished
product looks darkish yellow with a special aroma. The vegetable
is good for relieving summer heat, promoting the production
of body liquid and stimulating the appetite and removing the
cough. For this reason, the soup with the dried vegetable in
summer is a must for local residents in Shaoxing. The dried
vegetable steamed with Braised Pork Cube is a special dish of
Shaoxing and is listed in The Chinese Cookbook. |
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Pingshui Pearl Tea
With a reputation both at home and abroad, the pearl tea produced
in Pingshui, Shaoxing, is regarded as the green gem in soft
drinks. The tea looks round and tight in the shape and has a
delightful green color. Its flavor and aroma stay long in the
boiled water. Some tea drinkers love it so much that they proclaim
that this is the best tea in the region south of the Yangtze
River. Pingshui in the Kuaiji Mountain was a distributing center
of tea products for neighboring counties in the Tang Dynasty.
Pingshui is considered as the home of pearl tea. Rizhu Tea,
a special kind of pearl tea produced in Pingshui, was a tribute
to royal courts over centuries in feudal China. It is also one
of the major Chinese teas that sell well on international markets.
In 1984, Tiantan Brand special grade pearl tea won the state
quality golden medal. In 1985, the tea won an international
golden prize in Spain. |
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Shaoxing Preserved Bean Curd
Shaoxing preserved bean curd is known locally as mildewed bean
curd. It has an elegant name as vegetarian¡¯s meat. The bean
curd preserved this way takes the shape of cubes. These bean
curd cubes are soft and fine, and very tasty. This is regarded
by many people as a very ideal food that goes with rice at a
very low cost. The preserved bean curd made in Shaoxing enjoys
a good fame at home and abroad. The preserved bean curd can
also be used as a seasoning material. The preserved bean curd
cubes are made in a number of ways and in different tastes and
different sizes. Today, new ingredients such as ham, sesame
oil, osmanthus petals, and rose petals are introduced. These
bean curd cubes preserved in innovative ways are quite popular
with consumers both at home and abroad. |
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Shaoxing Old Wine
Wine produced in Shaoxing is considered as China¡¯s earliest
wine. Presumably that is how the wine is known as ¡°Old Wine¡±.
Ingredients and the process for the wine are quite special:
the water from the Jianhu Lake is unique, the process is quite
unique and the raw material is first class sticky rice. The
finished product appears like amber in color and emits a rich
aroma. It is palatable and nutritious. There are four famous
brands of the yellow wine in Shaoxing. Since the founding of
the People¡¯s Republic of China, Shaoxing Wine has won four international
golden medals. Since 1959, two brands of Shaoxing Wine, Guyue
Longshan Brand Jiafan Wine and Huadiao Jarred Wine, have been
used for visiting foreign guests at banquets of all kinds including
state banquets. |
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Shaoxing Silk
Home to silk, Shaoxing¡¯s silk production goes back to as early
as the Spring and Autumn period. At that time, Goujian, king
of the Yue state, encouraged his people to produce more farm
products and silk products in the efforts to restore the state¡¯s
military and economic power. In the Sui and Tang dynasties,
Shaoxing was not only a key region where silkworm farming was
very prosperous, but also a region where silk products accounted
for a large proportion of China¡¯s total silk output. Today,
Shaoxing has 226 businesses specialized in manufacturing silk
products such as factory-reeled silk, spun silk, twisted silk
as well as silk bedcovers and silk garments. These silk products
are characterized by a vast variety and fine workmanship. Silk
products made in Shaoxing are best known for the fine texture,
soft feel, and bright colors. They sell well both at home and
abroad. |
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Shaoxing Fragrant Pastry
The cake was one of the eight tributes from Shaoxing during
the Qing Dynasty. Locally, it was known as a cake that went
to the capital. The pastry art of making the fragrant cake dates
back the beginning years of the Jiaqing Period of the Qing Dynasty.
The Shaoxing fragrant cake is known for its choice raw material
and fine workmanship. The 14-step process and natural flavors
result in a cake that is fine, crisp, palatable, and aromatic.
Nutritious and easy to digest, the choice pastry is good both
for the old and the young. |
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