The Spring Festival, the most significant festival in Chinese culture, was just 
around the corner. Wu Qizhen, the 66-year-old successor of a traditional 
sugar-making technique included in the intangible cultural heritage list, was 
busy instructing workers to manufacture the brown sugar for the last "sweet" 
order before the festival on February 3.

Mr. Wu's brown sugar workshop was established in Zuntan Town, the south of 
Haikou, Hainan province. According to historical records, the traditional 
sugar-making industry has existed in Zuntan Town for over 600 years. The local 
sugarcane provides the raw material for the Zuntan brown sugar, which is 
manufactured through such procedures as juicing, boiling and solidifying. It is 
known as the "Oriental Chocolate" with high nutritional and medicinal value.

Mr. Wu told us that his brown sugar is made with an ancestral technique, 
including juice extraction, filtration, boiling and crystallization. The 
process of turning raw sugarcane juice into syrup takes about 8 to 12 hours. 
After the boiling, the syrup is poured into molds to get cubes after 
solidification and air-drying. Those sugar cube has the attractive shape and 
color of chocolate, but the taste is refreshingly sweet after it rapidly melts 
in the mouth.

According to Mr. Wu, the locals have regarded the traditional sugar-making 
technique as a sweet but hard-working skill with a low yield. Now, there are 
only five traditional sugar technique successors in Zuntan Town, all of whom 
are over 50 years old.

Mr. Wu's traditional brown sugar workshop has been listed as an intangible 
cultural heritage project in Haikou (at the provincial level). In addition to 
the traditional product portfolio of the ginger brown sugar, the rose brown 
sugar and jujube brown sugar, Mr. Wu planned to invent a new variety with 
Hainan characteristics, the coconut brown sugar. He also upgraded the 
production equipment in 2020, and began to train his son to be the sixth 
generation of traditional sugar technique successor. "Perhaps, there will be 
more people willing to learn the traditional art of sugar-making when the sugar 
workshop gains more growth," said Mr. Wu.

Source: Wu Qizhen's brown sugar workshop

Image Attachments Links:

   Link: https://iop.asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=383875

   Caption: The worker pours the boiled brown sugar syrup into a mold and waits 
for it to be air-dried into sugar cubes.