We had this 4-liter, matte-white Chinese pickle jar custom made. We love its slightly pearlescent soft-white finish and the fact that it is as beautiful as it is functional. In addition to the jar, all of our Sichuan pickling starter kits include:

• Sichuan's specialty pickling salt
• a small bag of Sichuan pepper for flavoring
• our meticulously tested recipe and instructions for making lacto-fermented pickles the Sichuan way. 

Designed thousands of years ago to be the ideal form for naturally fermenting vegetables, the shape of the Sichuan pickle jar has two inherent advantages:

1) The narrow opening and wide shoulders of the jar help keep the contents below the brine—which is key for mold-free natural fermentation—without the use of weights, and 2) The moat around the opening holds water that makes a natural seal, allowing the carbon dioxide released during fermentation to escape while sealing out unwanted oxygen and contaminants. 

This particular jar is made of porcelain in Jingdezhen, China, in a high-fired, thick, durable clay form. It is glazed inside and out. 

With a 4 liter (17 cup) capacity, the jar is a medium-large size for home use.

We recommend the glass jar (see below) for shorter ferments and the larger, opaque ceramic jars for longterm ferments (months or years), but you can certainly use either jar for all brine pickling.

Identical in design and size to the white jar, this 4-liter jar has a slightly pearlescent charcoal-black glaze. 

If you are new to natural fermentation, glass paocai jars are ideal. There’s something very satisfying about seeing the transformation in the vegetables as they go from fresh to pickled. Not only do the multicolored vegetables look vibrant and sexy in their glass jar for the first couple days, but you will be able to see if and when fermentation begins, as the brine begins to bubble and go cloudy and the vegetables begin to darken. You can also easily monitor for harmless kahm yeast and scary mold. A glass paocai jar is also recommended if you plan on short ferments, such as cabbage and radishes, or plan to keep the brine going for only a few weeks up to a couple months.

However, if you wish to keep, grow and deepen the flavor of your brine over the long term, a ceramic paocai jar is a much better option. One reason is aesthetics: The more vegetables you ferment in the brine, the more buildup you get in the bottom of the jar. This yellowish-white powder is spent bacteria from fermentation and totally natural, but it’s not totally appealing.  A more important reason to opt for the ceramic jar, though, is that it blocks all light from the pickles, which nurtures a healthier brine over time, allowing you to develop an intensely—but always pleasantly—fragrant and flavorful "forever" brine. Vegetables in, pickles out, in an ongoing cycle of fermentation. 

The key ingredient for a pickling brine is salt, and while kosher salt or any iodide-free salt will work for fermentation, serious Sichuan picklers will use nothing but their local Zigong well salt. 

This legendary salt comes from brine deep under the ground in Zigong, Sichuan, site of the world’s very first brine wells, drilled in 252 B.C.! (Mark Kurlansky's fascinating book Salt: A World History spends a lot of pages on Zigong and its revolutionary well drilling.) While the original wells are no longer open (other than one historical demonstration well), this refined salt is still made by drilling for underground brine in Zigong. In fact, Zigong's deep drilling and well-salt production techniques are one of the few foods in China recognized as National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

For literally millennia, Sichuan cooks have sworn by this salt, for its taste, purity, nutrients and, in the modern era, its lack of added iodide and anti-caking agents, which they feel ruins the taste of salt and the food it’s used in. Especially for pickling, where iodide can kill fermentation, serious cooks insist on this Sichuan salt.

And old-timers will also tell you the coarser the salt the better. According to Juida, the 100-year-old manufacturer, the extra-large grains—actually small pellets—of this pickling salt allow a sustained release that penetrates vegetables more efficiently and results in a brighter color, crispier pickle and less spoilage.

Many of you already own our artisan-made, mouth-blown glass pickling jar, which we've carried for a couple years now. But if you don't, it may be the time to jump in, since it now it comes with ingredients and instructions.

Or perhaps it's time to share the joy of Sichuan pickling with a friend!

This smaller jar holds about 10 cups brine and is a medium size for home pickling.