Shanxi Mature Vinegar

Shanxi mature vinegar is a type of Chinese vinegar and one of the country's four famous ones, made from sorghum, barley, peas and other grains through steaming, fermenting, smoking, pouring and drying. Its history runs back three thousand years, and Jinyang, now Taiyuan, is considered the birthplace of Chinese vinegar, with a workshop recorded there in the eighth century BC. Qingxu, in the Taiyuan prefecture, is the centre of the modern trade: in 1956 the county joined twenty-one workshops into a public-private factory, and the brewing technique is now on the national intangible cultural heritage list.