Posted 2017/7/2
China is one of the three ancient countries in the world and has thousands of years of history to brew wine. Today, China is also famous for its masterly technology and distinctive style of wine and is more renowned for the long history and profound culture. The world people gradually realized the great value of wine culture of China as the rapid development of Chinese wine since the foundation of China. In China, the word for alcohol "jiu" is used to mean all types of alcoholic beverages, from "pijiu"(beer) to liquors (just called "jiu") to grape wine ("putaojiu"). The origins of the alcoholic beverages from fermented grain in China can not be traced definitely. The distilled drink was not popular until the 19th century. Traditionally, Chinese distilled liquors are consumed together with food rather than drunk on their own. The wine can be generally classified into two types, namely, yellow liquors (huangjiu) or clear (white) liquor (baijiu). The yellow liquor is fermented wine that is brewed directly from grains such as rice or wheat. Such liquor contains less than 20% alcohol due to the inhibition of fermentation by ethanol at this concentration. This wine is traditionally pasteurized，aged, and filtered before their final bottling for sale to consumers. Yellow liquor can also be distilled to produce white liquor or baijiu. White liquor (baijiu) are also commonly called shaojiu, which means "hot liquor" or "burned liquor", either because of the burning sensation in the mouth during consumption and the fact that they are usually warmed before being consumed, or because of the heating requirements for distillation liquors of this type typically contain more than 30% alcohol in volume since they have undergone distillation. There are a great many varieties of distilled liquors, both unflavored and flavored.
