From Mountain Necessity to City Craving: The Story of Guizhou Sour Soup

After almost 30 minutes of hiking through the mountains with Ahua and her very obedient border collie, learning about herbs I had never seen before and how Miao people cook with them, we arrived at a small storefront that also functioned as a workshop managed by Ahua. She pulled up the rolling metal door and we crouched underneath to get inside.

The air was immediately cooler, one of the first things you notice in Guizhou. Even in warmer months, the climate here seems to favor fermentation with its relatively constant temperature and humidity. Following Ahua deeper inside, we entered a room lined with around fifty large ceramic urns, each about half the height of a person, sealed with heavy lids.

Miao Community in Danzhai, Guizhou Province. Around 92.5% of the province is made up of mountainous and hilly terrain, shaping not only the landscape, but also the way people live.

She stopped in front of one of them and lifted the lid, which resisted slightly because of the water seal. Instantly, a powerful sour aroma rushed out. The smell was more than sourness. There was the freshness of tomatoes, a savory richness, and a mellow fermented note that softened the sharpness.

Ahua dipped a wooden ladle into the urn and lifted out the contents for us to see. Bright red cherry tomatoes glistened in the liquid, releasing the familiar smell of Guizhou sour soup, one I had come to know well after cooking it so many times in my own kitchen. My mouth immediately started watering, the same anticipation I feel waiting for a pot of sour soup to come together at home.

First: During spring, our local guide Ahua, who is Miao, showed us how people in the mountains identify and use different wild herbs. | Second: Ahua ladled the content of the sour soup fermentation jar to show us.

In that exact moment, deep in the mountains of southwest China, I unexpectedly felt connected to city life again. Perhaps it was because I knew how far Guizhou sour soup had traveled.

“三日不食酸，走路打窜窜” — “Go three days without sour food, and you will stumble when you walk.”

In Guizhou, locals repeat this saying half jokingly, half seriously. It speaks to just how essential sourness is to everyday life here, where almost every meal includes something fermented or sour.

Although tomatoes only arrived in China a few centuries ago, they have become deeply woven into Guizhou’s food culture. Today, fermented tomatoes form the foundation of red sour soup, one of the province’s defining flavors and an ingredient many locals simply cannot imagine living without.

First: Guizhou’s unique location and climate made it perfect for fermentation and great travel destination.Credit: Ren Ran| Second: Mao-la fruit (Guizhou local cherry tomatoes) at the market and sour fish made with fermented mao-la sauce.

As we followed the tomato vines deeper into the mountains, we also found ourselves tracing the roots of Guizhou sour soup. Little by little, it became easier to understand how this culinary tradition came into being and why it established such a strong presence in Guizhou. Look at a terrain map of China, and the province immediately stands out. Much of Guizhou is mountainous, with limited flat land for farming and, historically, difficult travel between villages. For generations, communities had to make do with what the land allowed. Salt, once expensive and harder to access in inland mountain regions, was not always abundant enough to preserve food in the same way coastal areas could. Combined with Guizhou’s humid climate, where heat and moisture can quickly spoil ingredients and suppress appetite, fermentation became less of a culinary preference and more of a practical solution.

First: Ahua’s workshop has many ceramic urns that ferment sour soup, some are her own, some are commission by people in the community and even businesses. | Second: A taste tester of sour soup, which is comprised of Guizhou local cherry tomatoes, chili peppers and salt.

Among Miao communities, who are widely believed to have first discovered sour soup through accidental fermentation, as well as Dong, Buyi, and other ethnic minorities across Guizhou, sourness gradually became one of the foundations of daily cooking. Families learned to preserve what the mountains and seasons provided, extending the life of ingredients through fermentation while building flavor at the same time. Over generations, sour soup developed into a staple, eaten so regularly that many locals still joke they cannot go more than a few days without it.

Broadly speaking, Guizhou sour soup falls into two major categories: red sour soup (红酸汤) and white sour soup (白酸汤). Red sour soup, the version more widely recognized today, is usually made by fermenting local tomatoes and chili peppers with salt, creating a broth that is bright, savory, and deeply fragrant. White sour soup, more common among some minority communities, often relies on fermented rice liquids or rice-based fermentation, producing a softer acidity and lighter appearance.

At a very famous white sour soup hotpot restaurant in the capital city of Guiyang, Guizhou Province. The broth is milky and refreshing and the dipping sauce on the right is packed with flavors and texture.

Walk into a sour soup hotpot restaurant in Guizhou, and you will often be offered a small bowl of clear sour broth before the meal begins. It almost feels like an appetizer, something to wake up the palate. The soup is acidic, but also full of xian (鲜), the deeply savory quality so central to Chinese cooking. Somehow, instead of dulling the appetite, it does the opposite, making you want to eat more.

What began as necessity eventually became identity. Today, Guizhou sour soup is no longer confined to mountain villages or family kitchens. In 2021, the traditional craft of Miao sour soup production was included in China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, recognizing it not simply as food, but as a living tradition shaped by climate, preservation, migration, and memory.

At the same time, a younger generation is beginning to return home. People like Ahua are going back to their hometowns to continue learning about sour soup, while bringing back ideas and experiences gained in bigger cities. Some are using social media, online shops, and new forms of storytelling to introduce this mountain tradition to a much wider audience.

A very grand looking sour soup restaurant in Guiyang, the trend of sour soup restaurant have already spread all over China on a much larger scale since 2021. Credit: RED kris112233

Looking at the bigger picture, sour soup has undoubtedly become one of China’s rising food trends in recent years. Beginning around 2021, restaurants featuring Guizhou cuisine and sour soup started appearing rapidly in China’s larger cities, particularly along the coast. Search Guizhou cuisine or sour soup on Baidu Maps in Shanghai today, and more than 200 restaurants appear under the category.

Ningbo, in Zhejiang Province, also stands out for its unusually strong presence of Guizhou restaurants, shaped in part by migration from Guizhou over the years. For many who moved away, sour soup offers something familiar, a taste of home far from the mountains. For others, it has become an entry point into a cuisine and landscape they may never have known otherwise.

Search result on Baidu Map for Guizhou restaurant in China, with the majority in coastal areas such as Shanghai, Zhejiang Province and Guangdong Province.

Standing beside Ahua’s fermentation urns, thousands of kilometers from Shanghai, it struck me how food carries people across distance. For those who left Guizhou, sour soup becomes a taste of home, something familiar in an unfamiliar city. For others who have never set foot in the province, it offers a first glimpse into a landscape, climate, and way of life they may never have known otherwise.

AUTHOR - Chloe wang

A Tianjin, China native - Chloe has a deep appreciation for all things hotpot. Her appreciation of food and culture runs so deep that after a successful corporate career, she decided to uproot her life in China to attend Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa and Madrid. After working in the culinary industry in Canada, she decided to found Snout & Seek!

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