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Duliu aged vinegar brewing technique

Updated : 2023-04-12

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According to the "Tianjin Dictionary," Duliu aged vinegar was once a tribute to the imperial court, and was known as one of the three famous Chinese vinegars, along with Shanxi aged vinegar and Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar. The "Hejian Prefecture Annals," compiled during the Ming Jiajing period, recorded the custom of "brewing wine and mixing vinegar" during the Spring Equinox, when Duliu's aged vinegar was mainly used as a seasoning for cooking fish and shrimp, gradually forming its own flavor and characteristics, and the popularity of consuming vinegar among the people was flourishing. In the forty-first year of the Qing Dynasty's Qianlong reign, Duliu aged vinegar was designated as a tribute.

The earliest soy sauce and vinegar garden in Duliu was founded by the Wang family in 1665, called "Tianli Soy Sauce Garden." Tianli Duliu aged vinegar is also a traditional famous vinegar in China. After more than 300 years of historical inheritance, it still uses traditional manual techniques, undergoes 14 processes and takes 3 years to brew, forming a unique solid-state fermentation process, with two rounds of maturation and three years of aging. It has a delicious taste, a mellow texture, and a prominent aroma, thereby achieving the traditional flavor and quality unique to Duliu aged vinegar. In 2008, it was announced as a Tianjin city-level intangible cultural heritage protection project. In 2021, it was named as the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects.