🍽️ Buyei Five-Color Rice

Plant-dyed sticky rice, Buyei festival.

Buyei Five-Color Rice is a traditional festival food of the Buyei people in southwestern Guizhou. Glutinous rice is dyed black, red, yellow, purple and white using natural plant juices—black from maple leaves, red from red-and-blue herbs, yellow from buddleia flowers—then steamed in a bamboo steamer. The result is vividly colored, soft and sweet, with a fresh plant fragrance; it is the staple served on tables, in rituals and as gifts during Buyei festivals such as the Third Month Fair. It is both beautiful and delicious, showing the Buyei ingenuity of using mountain plants to color food. At festivals, a steamer of five-color glutinous rice on the table is both a taste treat and a living part of the ethnic cultural landscape.