Tianpeizi (Sweet Fermented Barley)

Tianpeizi is a traditional Qinghai sweet made by fermenting highland barley (or oats) with a wine starter, pale golden with a lightly sweet juice and soft grains bearing a faint alcohol fragrance, akin to southern Chinese sweet fermented rice but with more chew, a treat enjoyed through every season.

Tianpei grew from the highland barley diet of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau: with barley abundant, early people fermented it into a filling, faintly heady sweet that became a folk snack across Qinghai and Gansu. In Xining it is often eaten with local yogurt and fondly nicknamed "little sweet醺醅" and "the taste of first love."

A bowl of chilled tianpei is scooped grains and juice together, cool and mellow-sweet; or it is layered over Xining's old-style yogurt for a tangy-sweet, many-layered combination, the first choice for cooling down in summer or closing a meal.

The tender chew of the barley grains, the faint wine fragrance and sweet juice, and its classic pairing with Xining yogurt are the loveliest marks of tianpeizi.