🍽️ Hakka Rice Wine

Glutinous-rice wine, sweet and warming, called the Hakka mother’s wine.

Hakka mother's wine, also called Hakka yellow wine, is a sweet glutinous rice brew that Meizhou Hakka women drink during postnatal recovery and serve to guests. Made from glutinous rice mixed with a special Hakka yeast and naturally fermented in clay jars into a reddish sweet brew, it is then boiled and sealed for keeping. The liquid is amber-colored, fragrant, and tastes sweet, warm and mellow with a fairly low alcohol level, carrying the characteristic toasty sweetness of fermented glutinous rice. Hakka women traditionally stew or stir-fry chicken with this wine after childbirth, considering it warming and nourishing; on ordinary days they warm a small bowl for comfort. In Meizhou villages nearly every household brews its own, and it is given as a gift at festivals and weddings. More than a drink, it carries the emotional memory of Hakka women running the home across generations, hence the affectionate name mother's wine.