After more than 600 years, why do young women have to perform the music in the Maotai-flavor wine process?

Distillor koji is one of the indispensable raw materials for wine making, and it is also a unique invention in my country. Taoqu is a necessary process for making Jiuqu. Many people have never seen Taoqu. What does Taoqu look like? Just two days ago, I took my friends to see the Taqu craftsmanship, so I would like to share it with you.

Strictly speaking, Maotai-flavor wine follows the process of "making koji during the Dragon Boat Festival and taking the sand during the Double Ninth Festival." In fact, it is not the best time to make koji yet. But given that most winemaking now tends to be commercial, there have been some adjustments.

Maotai’s local Maotai-flavor liquor is made from local high-quality winter wheat (who can guarantee that there is no imported koji), and the old koji from the previous year is added as the “mother koji”. "Qu", trampling on music is a fixed craft.

In terms of publicity, those who perform the music must be young, innocent, and elegant virgins, so that the music they perform can be light and clean; in the promotional videos shot by Maotai Group, the people who perform the music are also young, innocent, and elegant. She is a young woman, wearing plain blue and white work clothes, with her trousers rolled up. Her bare feet are white and crystal clear, and she lightly steps on pieces of turtle-shaped koji that are "high in the middle and low on the sides."

The promotion of "young virgins singing songs" is undoubtedly a good publicity stunt. All parties will be happy to promote this more curious thing, which is essentially the same as Japan's "girls chewing wine" it's the same.

What is the actual situation? In fact, most girls at this age are still in school, or have already gone out to the colorful world. There are really very few young girls working in wineries, let alone beautiful ones. But it is indeed a woman who is playing music, but it may be the seventh or eighth aunt from the next village. It really has nothing to do with being young.

Music-tapping usually takes place at four or five o'clock in the morning. At that time, most people are still dreaming, and music-taping workers are already gearing up and ready to show off their talents.

Bags of wheat are first ground, then sent from the conveyor belt to the container, soaked and then sprinkled with aged Daqu as a primer. After stirring and mixing, the broken wheat is shoveled into the wooden koji. After they were piled high in the mold (about 30×20×10), the music-maker began to perform.

First, the broken wheat is compacted, and then starting from the edge of the mold, the workers form an "O-shaped leg" with the soles of their feet facing inward, and gather the distiller's yeast together by continuously stepping on it. The edges are specially pressed tightly, and the middle part is pressed tightly There is no need to step too much on some parts, but a certain gap should be maintained.

Under the feet of experienced workers, it takes about five minutes to make a piece of koji. The originally loose broken wheat will tightly gather together and become a "brick". The worker takes the mold aside and Knock the "curved bricks" out of the mold. This "knocking" is a test of technique. If you knock too hard, the pieces of music will fall apart, and your work will be in vain.

Stepping on music is actually a laborious job. The weight of the newly stepped pieces may be about 20 kilograms. After continuous work, a worker may have to step on 30-50 pieces at a time.

From a scientific point of view, young women are used to perform music. On the one hand, women’s bodies are lighter, women are also more flexible, and their body movements are more coordinated. They have to toss on a small mold early in the morning. , it is still more difficult for men.

Women with lighter bodies, when tamping the koji, will not press the koji too tightly due to excessive weight, resulting in no room for molds, microorganisms, etc. in the koji to ferment.

On the other hand, women have lighter body odor, less sweat, and less secretions, which will not have much impact on the taste of koji. Of course, in a regular factory-scale troupe, workers need to wear footwear.

In addition, when making koji for Maotai-flavor liquor, we follow the "three highs and three longs" (high temperature koji making, accumulation, and distillation; long koji making time, long production cycle, and long storage time). The koji making workshop The temperature is very high, possibly as high as 60℃ or above, which is why it is better to play music in the cooler morning. Women are more heat-resistant than men, which is their natural advantage.

From a metaphysical perspective. Women make music and men make wine for the purpose of harmonizing yin and yang and harmonizing the economy. Traditionally, music is made during the Dragon Boat Festival. The day of the Dragon Boat Festival is considered to be the time when heaven and earth are at their most yang. If you start to play music on this day, you need something "to the yin" to reconcile it. Then, the ancients considered it to represent the "to the yin" A virgin becomes the best choice.

When women step on the song, they use their feet to communicate with the "Yin Qi" of the earth. They use their bodies as a medium to allow the "Qi" to enter the distiller's yeast, thus giving it a mysterious function. From today's perspective, this can be said to be very nonsense.

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