Finger-licking bread worth waiting
There is a quaint bakery called "Jiuxi" in Leju, a village that lies in Tuanjie Township of suburban Kunming.
“‘Xi’ refers to the tenacious rhinoceros in the book Shan Hai Jing, and ‘Jiu’ means long-lasting. That's what I expect from my elaborate bread itself," said Mr. Zhao, founder of the “Jiuxi” bakery.
Shan Hai Jing, also known as The Classic of Mountains and Seas, is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts.
At two or three in the afternoon, people would queue for bread from Jiuxi. To ensure the high quality of each bread piece, Zhao can only make about 400 breads a day, which means that not all the people in line can be lucky enough to buy a loaf of bread.
In the pursuit of making the perfect bread, Zhao has very strict requirements on the quality of raw materials. Zhao insists on using only the unpolluted natural mountain spring water from the Leju village, and he makes the bread himself with yeast made from natural ingredients such as roses, lemons, oranges and strawberries. The rye and barley are selected by Zhao himself.
To ensure that all the fillings are original and rich in nutrients, Zhao and his coworkers make the fillings by themselves all the time. Zhao also uses only kilns to bake the bread, so that the bread can give off a pleasant and natural aroma.
Because of the strict selection of ingredients and the completely handmade steps, it takes longer time for Zhao to make the bread, but the wait is certainly worth it. The finished bread is covered with barley, chia seeds, white sesame seeds, black sesame seeds and oatmeal, and you can feel the softness of the bread. At a bite into it, the aroma of various grains bursts out in your mouth. This bread won wide applause from the villagers.
"I passed by and bought his bread last time. It really tasted divine, but the bread would be sold out before 3:00 p.m. every day,” said a resident from the Leju Village.
Jiuxi Bakery is definitely a paradise where people can get rid of the hustle and bustle in the modern city and find inner peace, and Zhao's bread is a best comfort food.
Source: Juedui/absolute Kunming (A WeChat network); Trans-editing by Zhang Shuyu