The caviar on the menu of Michelin-starred restaurants may come from an unexpected place: China.
The country has endured embarrassing food scandals in recent years, but its sturgeon eggs have gained the respect of caviar connoisseurs around the world.
It has also become pricier for US buyers as Chinese caviar is among the slew of products hit with 25 percent tariffs in the US-China trade war.
Photo: AFP
The bulk of China’s production comes from a picturesque lake ringed by mountains in eastern Zhejiang province where industry leader Kaluga Queen breeds the giant fish.
The brand was created in 2005 by experts who worked for the ministry of agriculture and it now produces more than a third of the world’s caviar, making China the global leader.
The company’s sturgeon farm is a 20-minute boat ride away from the shore in Qiandaohu, or Thousands Islands Lake.
Photo: AFP
Qiao Yuwen, a breeder, stood at the edge of the pools where the animals live until they are between the ages of seven and 15. The biggest sturgeons can grow to be four meters long and weigh 300 kilos.
“They’re like our babies. We see them from when they’re very young, so it’s hard when they are sent to be slaughtered,” Qiao said.
“But there’s also, of course, the satisfaction of having contributed to making an exceptional product,” he said before throwing pellets containing shrimp, peas and vitamins to the fish.
‘PRICE OF A FERRARI’
For a long time, Iran and Russia fished sturgeon in the wild in the Caspian Sea.
But the fish population was nearly decimated by overfishing and poaching after the Soviet Union, which had regulated fishing, fell in 1991.
Sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea was banned in 2008 while sturgeon farms have sprung up everywhere, with Italy, France and China among the world leaders in the industry.
Kaluga Queen has 300 employees looking after some 200,000 sturgeons.
Once they reach sexual maturity, females are fished out and taken to a laboratory where they are stunned before their bellies are sliced open to extract the black eggs.
The roe is then washed, sorted, salted and placed in boxes.
Kaluga Queen produced 86 tonnes of caviar last year, most of it destined for exports, with half going to the European Union, 20 percent to the US and 10 percent to Russia.
Depending on the species, the price per kilo varies between 10,000 and 180,000 yuan (US$1,420 to US$25,600). Sturgeons producing the most expensive caviar can carry as much as two million yuan worth of eggs.
“It’s the price of a Ferrari,” said Xia Yongtao, the company’s vice president.
‘VERY GOOD CAVIAR’
Kaluga Queen has walked a “long road” to win the trust of customers since the company produced its first jar in 2006, Xia said.
Chinese caviar had to overcome scepticism from foreign clients who were used to headlines about food scandals, from contaminated milk powder to soy sauce containing arsenic and rice tainted with cadmium.
“A few years ago, customers were reluctant when we talked about Chinese caviar,” said Raphael Bouchez, president of Kaviari, a Paris-based supplier to renowned restaurants.
Bouchez convinced customers by explaining how Chinese producers raise fish and use methods that respect the environment.
“Chinese caviar, it must be said, is a very good caviar,” Bouchez said.
“That said, many of the chefs still do not want it. They prefer to have caviar from France, Uruguay or elsewhere,” he said.
Today, Kaluga Queen has an annual turnover of 220 million yuan and counts among its customers German airline Lufthansa and L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon, a two Michelin stars restaurant in Shanghai.
Distributors supply other restaurants around the world, and one buyer said he had delivered one shipment to Kim Jong-un, according to Xia.
French chef Guy Savoy, whose Paris restaurant has three Michelin stars and is rated the best in the world, uses Chinese caviar with skate wings and scallops.
“The label ‘made in China’ does not matter,” Savoy said. “The important thing is the quality of the breeding. Those supplied to us are of remarkable quality.”
Lily Liu, Kaluga Queen’s marketing manager, hopes someone else can try her company’s caviar.
“We hope that Donald Trump will taste our caviar and say: ‘I like it! Let’s reduce tariffs and help Chinese caviar conquer America!”
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and