Sugar king: Six-century-old ‘Oriental Chocolate’ successor seeks Haikou inheritance path

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 -- With the Spring Festival around the corner, Wu Qizhen, the hexagenarian 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.

Sixty-six-year-old 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.

In a statement, Wu said his brown sugar was made with an ancestral technique, including juice extraction, filtration, boiling and crystallisation, whereby the process of turning raw sugarcane juice into syrup took between eight and 12 hours.

After the boiling, the syrup is poured into molds to get cubes after solidification and air-drying. Those sugar cubes have the attractive shape and colour of chocolate, but the taste is refreshingly sweet after it rapidly melts in the mouth.

“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,” noted Wu.

In addition to the traditional product portfolio of the ginger brown sugar, the rose brown sugar and jujube brown sugar, Wu plans to invent a new variety with Hainan characteristics, the coconut brown sugar.

-- BERNAMA