LOCAL FOOD GUIDE

Yiwu Brown Sugar Fried Dough Twists 义乌红糖麻花

Yiwu Hongtang Mahua

Yiwu Brown Sugar Fried Dough Twists is featured among the local specialties of Zhejiang.

AI illustration: A ceramic plate of small golden fried dough pastries with visible airy crisp texture.
AI illustration · AI 示意图（仅供参考，非实拍）AI-generated visual reference; not a restaurant photograph. AI 示意图，仅供参考，非实拍。

Yiwu Brown Sugar Fried Dough Twists (义乌红糖麻花) combine twisted fried dough with concentrated sugar-cane juice. An original Xinhua (新华社) photo report records their production at Mingyue Brown Sugar Factory (铭悦红糖厂) in Shangyang Village (上杨村), Yiwu (义乌).

Pouring and cooling

In the photographed production sequence, workers pour thick sugar-cane juice over the dough twists to make brown-sugar mahua. Another photograph shows workers spreading out the newly made twists to cool. The report identifies them as a traditional local winter food, linking the finished snack with the early-winter sugar-making season.

The local sugar

Mature sugar cane supplies the raw material. Xinhua describes Yiwu makers simmering the juice in iron pots heated with firewood. Their sugar is pale yellow with a slight greenish cast, giving it the local name Yiwu qing (义乌青).

AI illustration: A small pile of golden-brown fried dough twists, clearly braided strands and crisp bubbled surfaces.
AI illustration · AI 示意图（菜式参考，非实拍） · 麻花 — A general serving example; recipes and presentation vary.

China Revealed · Editorially updated 2026-09-30

Sources & reading

Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-30. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.