It seems that sugar has the mysterious power of healing. Its charm not only lies in the temptation of taste, but also the rejoice flowing into the bottom of your heart and the happiness spreading all over you. When a piece of sugar slowly melts in your mouth, all the bad vibes can be forgotten.

Among all kinds of sugar, some people only prefer the brown sugar from Huangyan District of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province. Napoleon once mentioned that even if his eyes were blindfolded, he could find the way back home by his olfaction because the wind from hometown has a particular scent of plants. It’s the same in Huangyan. Each year when it comes to the harvest season of sugarcanes, the refreshing scent of ripe sugarcanes permeates the air. Looking around, you will be amazed that you’re surrounded by the dark green.

Hey, look! Sugarcane farmers are chopping canes, bundling them up, then shipping these fresh ingredients to the sugarhouse. It has been hundreds of years since the people in Huangyan started to make brown sugar out of canes.

At the processing site, canes full to the brim, firewood piled up to the height of half wall, o ver ten cauldrons ready to go…If you enter into the sugarhouse during the whole process of brown sugar decoction, you can see sparkles flying and at the same time smell the sweetness in the air. Every bit of sweet requires time and energy. The brown sugar decoction process is the same.

Sugarcane growers put canes into squeezer, which can separate the bagasse and cane juice apart. Thick cane juice flow into the filter vessel and need to subside for some time. The cane juice will be scooped into cauldron for the next step-brown sugar decoction. Sugarcane growers will be waiting beside the cauldron for the cane juice to boil. Inside the mud-made hearth is the flaming fire lighted by the dried sugarcane tops, sizzling beneath the cauldron.

More than ten cauldron are lined in one row. The sizzling whisper from them seems to inform you of the approaching sweetness. After the cane juice boils, the sugar master keeps stirring the cane juice, then scoop the residue and pour the clean cane juice into the next cauldron. Usually the first cauldron has the most cane juice and residue and the last one has the thickest cane juice. Kneading sugar needs the perfect timing and optimal fire control. When it is the time, the sugar master will tell other coworkers to scoop the syrup into specially made wooden plates, in which the golden liquid keeps glittering.

Sugar master keeps stirring the syrup. After evaporation cooling, the syrup will become solid. With repetitive pressing, the solid sugar will be sandlike. Like the old saying goes,"Coagulate as solid as stone and break as dense as sand."

With a simple dip of brown sugar, the dedicate sweetness can cover all over your mouth and satisfy each of your taste bud. To obtain original Huangyan Brown Sugar, several procedures are required, breeding, seeding, harvest, decoction, etc. Without sugarcane farmers' efforts through the whole year, we would never have the chance to taste a bit of this extraordinary sugar. The sweetness mixed with the aroma of a little burning dried sugarcane top is the best celebration through the whole year.

Till now, Huangyan people still stick to the most original and traditional method to decoct brown sugar, which not only shows the strength of inheritance but also the hope of persistence. On September 28th, 2016, Huangyan Brown Sugar has registered Agro-product Geographical Indication recognized by Ministry of Agriculture of P.R.C. This is the first registered protection agricultural product in Huangyan.

In Huangyan, almost in everyone's heart stores a piece of sweet memory related to brown sugar: a mug of brown sugar water at the reunion dinner, soft steamed sticky rice cake and rice balls covered with powdered brown sugar at the special solar terms in each year... The dash of sweetness can recall the memory of the taste of hometown burying at the bottom of one's heart. No matter how far you’re away from home, the taste can render you a sense of belonging.

As long as sugarcanes can be ripe, brown sugar are handmade, the sweet aroma in the air can always remind you what happiness is like and what flavour happiness might taste like.

The lingering sweetness guides the lost ones the way home. Are you homesick right now? Savor a little Huangyan brown sugar!

(Executive Editor: Yongliu He)