June 2020: Sichuan's Prized Baoning Vinegar Has Arrived!

June 04, 2020

June 2020: Sichuan's Prized Baoning Vinegar Has Arrived!

Time-Honored Brands

Hello, Friends of The Mala Market!
 

I will keep this one short. I hope you're doing well, staying safe and letting your voice be heard. With all that's going on in the world, we're reluctant to send product news, but we promised we'd tell you when our sauce shipment arrived. And it has!

That includes 3-year Pixian doubanjiang, all-natural soy sauce brewed for 360 days, and two versions of Sichuan's handmade Baoning vinegar (a 3-year and a 10-year, photo above).

All of these sauces are China Time-Honored Brands, which means they have painstakingly documented company histories that stretch back centuries. Centuries! And while all these companies are large now, with mass-market product lines in China's grocery stores, the products we've brought to the U.S. for the first time are their top-of-the-line handcrafted versions that follow the old brewing traditions. They are very small batch and reserved for sale mainly to VIPs in China and at the companies' factory museums.

(All these products have museums devoted to their histories that you can visit as you would a winery. Unfortunately, the coronavirus kept us from touring the Baoning factory and museum this summer as planned, but we'll get there eventually. There are photos we took of the other factories on those product pages.) 

This also means our Complete Sichuan Pantry is back in stock! It's the perfect collection for yourself and/or your social distancing friends and family, creating a Sichuan pantry in one fell swoop and allowing preparation of the majority of classic Sichuan dishes. 

If another product you were hoping for is not yet back in stock, know that we have shipments from Sichuan arriving every two or three months and are replenishing everything as quickly as possible. We have provided our best estimate of return dates for out-of-stock products at the top of most product pages. 

We're also working on a few more exciting new products that will roll out this summer and fall. Until then, may cooking continue to bring you comfort. 

🌶Taylor & Fongchong 🌶
 

Zhongba 360 Light Soy Sauce (Naturally Brewed 1 Year)
Zhongba 360 Light Soy Sauce (Naturally Brewed 1 Year)
$14.00
All-natural soy sauce brewed (for a full year) by the same family in Sichuan since 1828. This is the one Andrew Zimmern said was "transformative. The best soy sauce for the money I have tried in years." 
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Handcrafted 3-Year Pixian Chili Bean Paste (Yi Feng He Hao Doubanjiang)
Handcrafted 3-Year Pixian Chili Bean Paste (Yi Feng He Hao Doubanjiang)
$20
The one and only Pixian broad bean paste that is stirred by hand every day for 3 years. This small-batch product was scooped from its earthenware crock and packaged to order for The Mala Market in March. 
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Baoning Handcrafted Vinegar
Baoning Handcrafted Vinegar
$14.00
Sichuan's Baoning vinegar is one of the four famous vinegars of China and certainly the one best suited to Sichuan food. Brewed from six grains and a fermentation starter of Chinese medicinal herbs, it is red-brown, medium-bodied and pure, with no added sugar or salt. 
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Baoning Handcrafted Vinegar, Aged 10 Years
Baoning Handcrafted Vinegar, Aged 10 Years
$24.00
This handmade Baoning vinegar has a similar recipe to the 3-year version above, but is aged a full 10 years. It is deep red-brown, full-bodied and evocative of centuries of brewing expertise. 
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Complete Sichuan Pantry Collection
Complete Sichuan Pantry Collection
$117.00
Everything you need to cook classic Sichuan food. A quarantine cooking project that could pay off for a lifetime. 
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