China Time-Honored Brand Collection

A bundle of our top-of-the-line sauces, the China Time-Honored Brand Collection includes Sichuan's finest handcrafted soy sauce, 20-year black vinegar, 3-year aged doubanjiang (chili bean paste) and 3-year douchi (fermented soybeans), as well as the country's most honored roasted sesame oil.

A China Time-Honored Brand has been in business for at least 50 years, but most of them have been operating in various forms for centuries and have survived the challenges of emperors, wars, invasions, revolution, collectivization and renewed competition. Somehow, the knowledge, skills and recipes have been retained, and we can still experience how these quintessential Sichuan ingredients tasted at their origin. 

Of course, factories have also been automated and expanded over the years, and all of these companies now make mass-market versions of their products as well, but what we've gathered here are the handmade versions they still make in very small batches in the traditional way—the highest expressions of their craft. Outside China these sauces are exclusive to The Mala Market, and even within China they are difficult to procure. 

Here are the China Time-Honored Brands included in this collection, four from Sichuan and one from Shandong. Each is all natural, with no additives or preservatives. 

Zhongba Handcrafted Soy Sauce, 24 ounces: This impressively large bottle of soy sauce is made by the Sichuan heritage brand Zhongba. As it was in the founding year of 1828, Zhongba's artisan version of its soy sauce is still fermented in large earthenware crocks. The sauce is hand-stirred daily for one full year, and exposure to the ambient microbes imbues the sauce with the inimitable taste of its local terroir.

Like all traditional Chinese soy sauce, Zhongba is made from water, soybean, wheat, salt and time. But it does have a secret umami ingredient: mushroom. It does not taste like mushroom, per se, but this proprietary mix makes for a deep-red soy sauce with full body and mouthfeel and a compellingly complex flavor that is so much more than salty. We invite you to do a taste test with this soy sauce and any other you can find to understand the difference a long, natural brewing process and 200 years of experience make.

Ingredients: water, soybean, wheat, salt, mushroom
Contains: soybean, wheat

20 Year Baoning Handcrafted Black Vinegar, 17 ounces: Sichuan's Baoning vinegar—whose creation is dated to 936 A.D.—is deep red-brown and full-bodied, and the taste is more savory than sweet. This very small-batch 20-year Baoning is the most complex and fullest bodied the company makes.

The multigrain composition—rice, bran, wheat, corn, sorghum and buckwheat—hits the nose and palate in unfamiliar but intriguing ways. Part of the intrigue also turns out to be the fermentation starter, which, uniquely among Chinese vinegars, is created from more than 60 Chinese spices and medicinal herbs. The vinegar then ferments in aged earthenware crocks that carry decades of microbes in their walls, infusing it with the unique taste of the Baoning terroir. 

Like the handmade soy sauce, 20-year Baoning is not for stir-frying or high-heat cooking but is best used for cold dishes, dipping sauces and noodle topping.

Ingredients: water, bran, wheat, corn, rice, sorghum, buckwheat, sugar
Contains: wheat

3 Year Pixian Doubanjiang, 18 ounces: While the other ingredients in this collection are used across China, Pixian doubanjiang is specific to Sichuan cooking—so much so that it is called "the soul of Sichuan cuisine." Doubanjiang, or chili bean paste, is the base of many classic Sichuan dishes, including mapo tofu, and this 3-year doubanjiang is the pinnacle of what's commercially available. Made entirely by hand—as it has been since 1688—this Yi Feng He Hao douban is the premium product of Sichuan Pixian Douban Co.

It is a fermented mix of broad (fava) beans, er jing tiao chilies, salt and wheat flour—and nothing more, no extraneous ingredients, additives or preservatives. Just a pure concentration of spicy, salty, natural umami. Like the soy sauce, it is stirred by hand daily and then left to bask in the rural Sichuan sun and air, soaking in the microbes of its unique terroir. This 1,000-plus days of careful, hands-on aging makes for an extremely complex taste. While young douban is brash and sharp, the older version is funkier and rounder, with layer upon layer of soulful flavor that lingers far after the initial hit of heat and salt. 

Ingredients: chili, broad bean, wheat flour, salt
Contains: wheat

Tongchuan 3 Year Fermented Soybeans (Douchi), 10 ounces: Fermented soybeans are called “black beans” in the U.S. and douchi in China, but we just like to call them umami bombs, since they pack so much flavor in such a little bean. An even older Chinese condiment than soy sauce, douchi are a fixture of Cantonese cuisine but also beloved in other parts of China, including Sichuan, where they are made in a different style and result in a more moist, plump bean—though they are interchangeable in Chinese recipes.

These douchi are called Tongchuan, named after the historical county in northern Sichuan where they were first commercially made, in 1670. While supermarket black beans are aged from six months to a year, these premium, handcrafted douchi are aged in their crocks for a full three years, intensifying the umami and depth of flavor. 

Ingredients: soybean, water, salt
Contains: soybean

Cuizi Small-Mill Roasted Sesame Oil, 7 ounces: Sesame oil is the wild card here, the only product among the collection that is not fermented and not from Sichuan. But we included it because it is so widely used in Sichuan and almost all regional Chinese cooking—as a finishing oil for stir-fries or a component of sauces—and Shandong happens to make the China Time Honored Brand. Though Cuizi sesame oil is widely available in China, we are the sole importers for the U.S. 

Cuizi has inherited a 600-year history of producing sesame oil in a very specific way for superior color, fragrance and taste: The company developed its own non-GMO sesame cultivar, which is darkly roasted and ground by small stone mills at low pressure and low temperature, so as to not destroy the aromatic substances and functional nutrients. The sesame oil is then separated from the sesame solids by a natural, water replacement method, versus the standard chemical method, and filtered through 36 layers of plant fibers to remove impurities. 

Ingredients: sesame seed oil

Visit individual product pages to learn more about each product.

Refrigeration is not required but is recommended for all products for extended shelf life and freshness.