Yigou Hollow Noodles

Yigou Hollow Noodles

　　Yigou Hollow Noodles are a specialty of Yigou Town, Tangyin County, Anyang City, Henan Province. For two hundred years since their inception, the handmade hollow noodles of Yigou Town in Tangyin have been renowned as a masterpiece of noodle cuisine due to their unique craftsmanship, thread-like fineness, and hollow centers.

　　According to the Annals of Tangyin County, Yigou Hollow Noodles have a history of two hundred years and were exhibited at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco, USA, in 1914, gaining fame both domestically and abroad, enduring through the ages. Currently, only the Liu family’s hollow noodles have been passed down in Yigou Town.

　　It is said that in September of the 27th year of the Guangxu reign (1901), Emperor Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi were returning to Beijing from Xi’an. On the ninth day of the eleventh lunar month, they stayed at Yigou Post. After tasting the handmade noodles of Yigou, Empress Dowager Cixi was highly satisfied and bestowed the praise “Good noodles!” Since then, Yigou handmade noodles have gained great renown.

　　The Liu family’s hollow noodles, a main school of Yigou handmade hollow noodles, carry on ancestral techniques and uphold a philosophy of honesty and integrity. In recent years, they have registered and established Anyang Wanshengyuan Food Co., Ltd., bringing this traditional product of handmade hollow noodles into a standardized and regulated path of production and operation.

　　Wanshengyuan handmade hollow noodles must use premium high-gluten flour as the raw material. Through 28 procedures—from kneading the dough, rolling it, flattening it, and making strips, to twisting the strips, coiling them, proofing, hanging them up, and inserting them into drying holes—the noodles, originally about the thickness of chopsticks and less than one meter long, are stretched to 2.5 meters in length and then naturally air-dried. The finished hollow noodles are white as snow, fine as silk, soft as tendons, hollow in the center, and delicious in taste, making them highly popular among consumers.

　　In response to market demand, Anyang Wanshengyuan Food Co., Ltd. has developed a series of products based on the traditional craft of hollow noodles. Using refined and strong gluten flour produced at the Huolonggang National Green Wheat Base, and introducing medium-low temperature drying technology, they have successively developed oil stick noodles, egg noodles, vegetable noodles, and mung bean noodles. They have also created three-tiered product lines—premium, mid-range, and economy—as well as nutrition-focused, soft-textured, and chewy varieties to meet different consumer needs. Especially in terms of packaging, they have abandoned the traditional methods of using hemp ropes and newspapers, switching to printed paper and plastic bag packaging. This has improved hygiene standards and extended shelf life to 12 months, changing the historical limitation of hollow noodles being vulnerable to moisture and unable to last through summer. These improvements have added even more value to this traditional product.