Fanchang Digang Fragrant Greens 繁昌荻港香菜

How it is made

The snack was cured in small jars (小坛腌制), and the town government records the trade moving from that jar method to standardised packing. On one company's automated line the product is fed in, weighed, filled, vacuum-packed, sealed and sterilised, and the equipment can pack up to 50,000 pouches a day.

Small 25-gram and 80-gram packs, each meant for one meal, are made to keep for half a year at room temperature through a change in process, while holding what the maker calls a clean, fresh and mellow taste (清爽鲜醇).

Flavour and texture

When it was shown at a trade fair in 2025, the town government described Fanchang Digang Fragrant Greens as fragrant and hot, crisp and tender, fresh, sweet and salty at once (香辣脆嫩、鲜甜咸美), and presented it as a snack of the Wanjiang (皖江), the Anhui stretch of the Yangtze.

Where it comes from

Digang dates the snack back more than 600 years. Its making technique (荻港香菜制作技艺) was added to Anhui's sixth provincial list of intangible cultural heritage in 2022. Close to a hundred producers and workshops make it in the town, and in 2025 it was one of the exhibits at the third Yangtze River Delta green quality farm-produce promotion week in Nanjing (南京).

The same producers have added more than ten related snacks, among them five-spice radish, sweet-and-sour ginger, soy-pickled lettuce stem, sweet-and-sour garlic, red-oil cowpeas and potherb mustard (雪里蕻).