Erguotou Factory Tour: hello and good baijiu
- By William Wang
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E-mail CRI, February 6, 2013
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A statue helps demonstrate baijiu's 800-year history at the Erguotou baijiu factory in Beijing. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com/William Wang] |
Chabya, another visitor had a more positive review: "It's good because it's dry. It wasn't sweet, it was fruity."
The next tour stop seemed to be a slight diversion from the actual production of baijiu. The group squeezed into what looked like a traditional Beijing courtyard to take in a lesson about baijiu's 800-year history, aided by a series of statues. Baijiu has agricultural roots as shown by eight black life-size figures with the muscular chests and ample biceps typical of farm laborers. They carry out the original baijiu recipe, as culminated by one lucky fellow who tastes the final product from the "magic" cup.
The timing of this day's tour was a score when the group had the luck to try the freshly brewed baijiu, but the visit to the bottling section was a miss. The crew was apparently on lunch break, though one worker chose to sleep instead of eat. She lay hunched over in front of the light box at which she stares for hours at a time, assessing content levels and checking for foreign objects. A few members of the group snapped photos of her sleeping before moving on.
Next, visitors viewed one of the storage houses where thousands of chest-high clay and metal casks seemingly store enough baijiu to get the entire country drunk multiple times over. Samples of light and heavy fragrance baijiu were doled out, with some tasters flinching and coughing, while others proclaiming their appreciation for one or the other.
"People have to eat when they drink baijiu," chirped a China Culture Center guide, as she passed out handfuls of peanuts, the traditional snack. Some visitors anxiously snatched them up, happy to have anything to help get the burning, sweet baijiu taste out of their mouths.
Of course, the requisite final destination of the tour was the store where guests could choose from a broad array of Erguotou baijiu. Prices ranged from 4 yuan to 48,888 yuan, with some boxes definitely prettier than others.
"That baijiu's expensive because of the Chinese astrology animal on the bottle," said a store employee. "Last year was the dragon year, so we made dragon bottles to celebrate. This year is the snake year so we produced another special bottle.
"The taste of regular baijiu and expensive baijiu are totally different," she added, remembering her duty. "There's an old Chinese saying: The quality matches the price. "
Cheap or expensive, purchasers here could at least be assured their baijiu was authentic, as even Erguotou's cheapest liquors are faked by others. The visitors made their purchases (most of them as gifts, incidentally) before piling onto the bus once again. But now they were amply prepared to celebrate in Chinese style, if need be.
Tour organized by the China Culture Center
www.chinaculturecenter.org
Fee (including transportation): 180 yuan
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