Jiulong Tofu

Jiulong Tofu

　　　　            Jiulong Tofu is a specialty of Jiulong Town, made by grinding beans with the area’s unique mountain spring water. It has a delicate, silky texture and a rich bean aroma, and is widely known across Yingde. To truly taste authentic Jiulong Tofu, you must go to Jiulong Town – that’s where the genuine version is found. Making real Jiulong Tofu doesn’t actually require any secret techniques. It all comes down to the quality of the local water. First, the carefully selected local soybeans are soaked in water from underground layers more than ten meters deep for three hours, then ground into soy milk using a stone mill, and the soy juice is extracted – this process is called “pressing the soy milk.” The extracted soy juice is then heated and poured into a large wooden barrel mixed with gypsum powder – this is called “coagulating the soy milk.”

　　　　            Finally, the soy milk is poured into wooden molds about half a meter square, where it coagulates naturally. Wooden boards and heavy stone slabs are then placed on top of the molds to press out excess water, and the result is snow-white, silky tofu. The tofu is then lightly pan-fried on a heated iron plate until the surface turns golden brown while the inside remains pure white, after which it can be displayed and sold at stalls.

　　　　            The old stone mills used to take several hours to grind the beans into soy milk, but now with the use of a “soy milk grinder,” powered on, it takes just twenty minutes. Quality and efficiency both improved. Currently, there are over a dozen tofu workshops in Jiulong. Besides supplying local villages and towns, some have even expanded their business to restaurants in the Pearl River Delta region.