Guancheng Village hand-made malt sugar at Gaochun District, Nanjing City has had a history of almost 200 years.
Guancheng Village, formerly named as Tangfang Village, is the oldest sugar workshop in Gaochun District.
Mix malt and steamed sticky rice proportionally to stir, ferment and filter the juice, then decoct by big fire into pasty, and it becomes the chrysophoron shaped sweet and delicious malt after cooling; it is free of saccharin and any addictive, so one of the greatest features of Gaochun malt is green and healthy.
There are more than a dozen of working procedures to decoct and make malt: wash rice, grind malt, ferment, decoct malt, pull malt … first, soak wheat to make it sprout, then wash sticky rice clean and steam, and then put the malt and steamed sticky rice into a big pot together, stir and then keep the temperature to make them ferment. The fermented water is right sweet water, then filter the sugar residue and decoct the left juice into pasty again. When the smell is becoming stronger and stronger, the sugar in the pot has become sticky which will solidify as brown sugar block when it is cool.
The most troublesome procedure is to decoct the juice, if the duration and degree of heating is too much, the juice will become tough and break easily when it is pulled later; if the duration and degree of heating is not sufficient, it will become sparse and uneasy to pull finally.
Besides it is delicious, the malt sugar has the effects to strengthen the spleen and stomach, and moisten lung to arrest cough, so it is the food suitable for people of all ages.
