Li Fermented Fish and Rice 黎家鱼茶

Li Fermented Fish and Rice (黎家鱼茶), known in Hainan as yucha, is a Li (黎族) dish of raw fish mixed with cooked rice and salt and left to ferment in a sealed jar. In Changjiang Li Autonomous County (昌江黎族自治县) it is among the Li dishes served to visitors at a village farmhouse restaurant in Wangxia Township (王下乡), in the mountains of western Hainan.

How it is made

People's Daily Online's Hainan channel describes the basic method: common freshwater river fish and the shiling fish (石鲮鱼) of Wuzhishan (五指山) are mixed with mountain-orchid rice (山兰米) and ordinary rice, salted, and sealed in a jar to ferment. Hainan Online (海南在线) distinguishes two kinds. For wet yucha, live freshwater fish is cut into pieces, rubbed with salt and left for one or two hours before the brine is drained off; for dry yucha the fish is sun-dried first. The fish is then stirred together with cooked rice, wine lees or toasted rice and sealed in a jar. In hot weather it can be opened after seven to ten days; in cool weather it needs at least half a month.

Flavour and texture

When the jar is opened the first smell is the sourness of fermentation, followed by a faint salty, winey note. Because the fish is eaten raw, it is fairly chewy. One saying quoted by Hainan Online sums up how newcomers react: wary at the first taste, used to it at the second, hooked by the third.

Where it comes from

The dish has nothing to do with tea. Hainan Online says the name is thought to come from a Li word, and that 'fish sour' (鱼酸) would describe it better; some scholars argue it is a corruption of yu zha (鱼鲊), an old name for fish preserved with salt and rice. Yucha is a signature dish for entertaining guests and an essential food at Sanyuesan (三月三), the Li and Miao festival in spring. In Wangxia, China National Radio (央广网) met Liu Guifang (刘桂芳), who opened a farmhouse restaurant in Langlun Village (浪论村) in 2020 and learned yucha, meat cha (肉茶), mountain-orchid glutinous rice wine and bamboo-tube rice from village elders. She describes yucha as fresh fish fermented with glutinous rice, sour, spicy and appetising.