The weather in Wuhan has passed.

This is pepper sesame,

The pungent smell of pepper,

Or the unique fragrance of star anise. ...

This problem is in the minds of many spice suppliers.

There are thousands of answers,

They are grateful for spices,

Concentrate on practice, persist day after day,

Baskets of fruit

Spread in China.

For spice growers,

Feel the spice, create the spice,

It is an admiration for life.

We want to take this tasting tour of the Source,

Find the most suitable spices,

Inject fresh soul into the pot-stewed flavor.

The original journey, the octagonal with soul.

Fragrant flowers, fresh green leaves, and a world of spices, you can always find your favorite taste.

In the eyes of many artists and craftsmen, the freshness of green leaves in the mountains in the morning, the fishy smell of slightly rotting soil after rain, and the smell of bark embracing tall tree trunks are all familiar and reluctant.

People in Fangchenggang, Guangxi have been familiar with this taste since they were very young. From the time they can remember, they followed their elders to take care of Illicium verum until they grew into skilled Illicium verum planting experts or green fixing experts.

Star anise, also known as fennel, is an essential spice for making braised pork. Its fruit is full, with peculiar smell and octagonal shape, which is used to remove the fishy smell of braised pork during processing.

As a family that grows Illicium verum, they learned the long-standing traditional Illicium verum planting and processing technology from grandpa and dad, and learned it from generation to generation.

Illicium verum is a kind of fruit that grows in the wind.

Fangchenggang, Guangxi belongs to subtropical monsoon climate, with abundant rainfall, forest coverage rate of 59% and fertile soil. The octagonal trees here are very strong and look like guards in the mountains.

The natural dense forests and fertile soil here provide sufficient nutrients for Illicium verum. Illicium verum grows in the dense forest, without fertilization or spraying pesticides. The main job of Illicium verum planting experts is to observe the growth of Illicium verum, remove redundant branches and pick them in mature seasons.

Mature star anise is originally bright green, hanging on the branches one by one, swaying in the wind, which is particularly beautiful. They are dotted on the high treetops, and the summer sun shines through them, reflecting bright green, bright green and shining, like full and silent bells.

However, under such beautiful scenery, there is a hidden risk of picking. Illicium verum is 30-40 meters high. In order not to hurt the star anise when picking, you can only pick it by hand. In the mature season of Illicium verum, planting experts work on the tree every day. They climbed several floors of octagonal trees, stood on the branches and picked them into the basket with their bare hands.

Because the star anise is very thick and high, it always falls once or twice a year. Despite this danger, they never thought of giving up, not only because it was an ancestral craft, but also because of their feelings for octagonal. The tall octagonal that grew up with them has already become a part of life. They practiced the unique skill of climbing trees, and walked among the big trees every day. Everyone climbed thousands of tall octagonal trees, with a breeze and the fragrance of octagonal.

Fade away and become what you want.

The picked star anise needs to be fixed before it can be stored and used. Fixing experts inherited the fixing technology of their parents and worked out a better method to fix octagonal step by step.

Fixed star anise is scalded with boiling water for 8 minutes, then dried in the sun for 7-8 days until it is completely dry, which becomes the dark brown we are familiar with every day.

Illicium verum should be picked immediately after picking, otherwise it will be moldy and black, which will affect the quality. After star anise fades in boiling water, it will give off a unique fragrance. At this time, the star anise presents a faint yellow color. Holding a 2-meter-long filtering tool in his hand, he fished the star anise out of the boiling water, put it in a special basket car and pulled it to the threshing floor.

The green star anise also needs to be dried immediately, which takes about 7-8 days. In order to maintain the natural fragrance of Illicium verum, each Illicium verum can absorb enough sunlight. Green-fixing personnel should stay in the octagonal threshing floor day and night and turn the octagonal every two hours to ensure that each octagonal is fully exposed to the air and sunshine. When it rains, we should take back the star anise in time to prevent it from getting wet when it meets water.

This period of time is a critical moment for the deactivation of Illicium verum. Once any star anise is not turned evenly in time, it will become moldy and cannot be used. All the drying personnel work in shifts, and each person is responsible for 3 mu of threshing floor, always guarding the octagonal beside him, and dare not relax.

"Whether an star anise has been well treated can be distinguished by its color, hardness and fragrance. We will observe the drying of star anise at any time during the drying process. The weather is different every day. We must know how long it will take to dry. "

Experts who kill octagonal are stationed here day and night. The high temperature during the day and mosquitoes at night were the only companions in the past day and night. Producing high-quality star anise is their insistence on faith.

Pay tribute to spice life with ingenuity

In the season of purchasing star anise every year, Jiujiu Duck will spend more than a month here, accompanying local people to pick, slaughter and dry, supervising every process, and striving to provide consumers with the freshest and most fragrant lo-fi flavor.

The star anise of Fangchenggang is the high-quality star anise that Jiujiuya's purchasing staff visited more than 200 cities across the country and compared with many producing areas, and finally decided to adopt. The star anise here is 50 years old, which is 20% bigger than the common star anise. After 7- 10 days of full drying, the fragrance of each star anise is more intense, which is of great help to Jiujiu duck neck.

Jiujiu Duck has always insisted on focusing on the original and classic flavor of Wuhan, and used more than 20 kinds of spices, hemp, spicy and fragrant, each of which contributed a taste. Grasping the original flavor of each spice is an important guarantee for Jiujiu duck neck to maintain its traditional flavor.

Now with the development of planting technology, many spices are no longer the original taste. Jiujiu Duck is committed to finding the original "source" flavor, looking for a group of spice makers who adhere to traditional skills, and integrating their years of persistence into every braised flavor to present to consumers.

Nowadays, Jiujiuya's spice purchasing has updated more than ten spice producing areas, and the purchasing staff visit the whole country for more than 200 days every year, just to find the original flavor. This is an intriguing journey that never gives up.

I have been on the road for a long time.