Gaocheng Tribute Noodle-Making Technique

The Gaocheng tribute-noodle craft was born in Gaocheng District of Shijiazhuang, arising in the Sui and Tang dynasties and flourishing under the Ming and Qing over more than a thousand years, taking the name "tribute noodle" from its presentation to the Qing palace. In 2013 the craft was added to Hebei's provincial intangible heritage list, and Gaocheng tribute noodles are also a China national geographical-indication product.

The craft uses refined flour, oil and coarse salt as its materials, worked wholly by hand through a sequence of steps—kneading, resting, opening, coiling, spooling, dividing, hanging and stretching—to produce noodles that are even and fine, hollow and translucent in cross-section, springy and smooth, and hold their clarity in the pot, a refinement beyond ordinary dried noodles.

The Gaocheng tribute-noodle craft carries a thousand-year tradition of flour-food making on the central Hebei plain, an important sample for the study of Chinese traditional food-processing and local produce, and a cultural emblem of Gaocheng.