It is called "black gold" and now 60% of the world's production comes from China!

The "Erbin" craze at the beginning of the year miraculously "exploded" many "local specialties that even the locals don't know about".

The news #12 grams of every 100 grams of caviar in the world comes from Ya'an# not only shocked people from other places, but also surprised people in Sichuan.

Most people who were born and raised in Sichuan may have heard of caviar, but they rarely associate this gourmet luxury with Sichuan, let alone imagine that Ya'an has grown into the second largest caviar production base in the country.

Swipe up and down to see more. Image source: Weibo

Looking back at the development trajectory of the caviar industry in Sichuan, behind it is not only the breakthroughs made by the Chinese in sturgeon artificial breeding technology, but also the story of Sichuan making full use of the high-quality natural resources on the edge of the western Sichuan Plateau to cultivate an emerging industry.
This is not just a simple history of fish farming, but also the accumulated results of several generations of scientific research and technological practice.

Caviar

Caviar has always been known for its high price. It is known as one of the three major delicacies in the world along with foie gras and black truffle.

The traditional way to eat it is to put a small spoonful on the back of your hand and lick it off. In Russia, people are used to drinking a strong sip of vodka. When you eat it, you can taste the salty flavor with the unique density of fish roe.

In modern times, celebrities have had mixed opinions about it, some like it, some hate it. In short, behind that salty and fragrant taste is a strong taste of money.
The reason why caviar is expensive can be traced back to its source.

According to the definition given by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, caviar refers to food made from the eggs of sturgeon fish after being treated with salt. Caviar is expensive because sturgeon is rare.

Acipenser is an ancient fish species, dating back to the Jurassic period, about 180 million years ago, and is considered a living fossil among fish. It is mainly distributed in the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere, and is mostly migratory fish. It is large in size, grows slowly, and has a long lifespan of more than 100 years.

The most expensive caviar in the world is currently taken from the white sturgeon. The growth rate of the white sturgeon is very slow, and it usually takes until the age of 20 to lay eggs. The caviar made from its eggs can be sold for $113,600 per kilogram.

Russian sturgeon (scientific name: Acipenser gueldenstaedtii), endangered status: critically endangered. Image source: Wikipedia

Since the 17th century, caviar has developed into an aristocratic food that reflects class status. It has spread westward from Russia to Europe along with the expansion of the modern railway network. As a symbol of status, the demand for caviar has continued to grow in the following two centuries.

At the same time, its source is still mainly dependent on catching wild sturgeons and then taking eggs for processing. Sturgeon fishing sites have been expanding from the core production area in Russia in the early days, the northern shore of the Caspian Sea. In the trade chain at the time, Europeans provided capital, Russians exported fishing experience, and "black gold diggers" were scattered in the main rivers of the northeastern United States, the Amur River on the Sino-Russian border, and Iran on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea.

Sturgeon fishing in the Po River, Italy in 1950. Image source: Wikipedia

In an era of rapid global wealth accumulation, the demand for caviar has continued to rise, and wild sturgeons are gradually approaching the brink of extinction. By the end of the last century, all 27 species of sturgeons under the order Acipenser were listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora , and stricter regulatory measures on sturgeon trade followed.

The sharp decline in wild sturgeon numbers and regulation have caused the price of caviar to continue to rise.

By 2000, about 30 countries and regions around the world had started to use artificial breeding technology for sturgeons, trying to solve the caviar industry's dependence on wild sturgeons through artificial breeding. However, the development of artificial breeding technology for sturgeons and the breeding of sturgeons require time, and the price of caviar cannot be reduced in a short period of time due to artificial intervention.

It was also from this stage that China's caviar industry began to grow and develop rapidly.

Sturgeon farming is making a comeback in China

Sichuan is a fast-catching latecomer in China's caviar industry.
Before it, Heilongjiang, Beijing and Zhejiang had worked hard on the artificial breeding of sturgeons and the processing and production of caviar, and achieved results.

Heilongjiang has been actively promoting the artificial breeding of sturgeons in China since the 1980s. In the late 1980s, the Heilongjiang State Farm Administration began to release Acipenser schrenckii fry into the Heilongjiang River. In 1995, the state officially launched the work of protecting sturgeon populations and breeding seedlings. The Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences and the Heilongjiang Hydropower Research Institute jointly established the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences Sturgeon Breeding Technology Engineering Center in Beijing. The center conducts research on the breeding of sturgeons under fully artificial conditions, and introduces new species such as Russian sturgeons and Siberian sturgeons for fully artificial breeding.

In 2000, Beijing made its first breakthrough in the artificial breeding technology of Siberian sturgeon. Since then, the number of artificially bred seedlings of this species has gradually increased. By 2002, more than 2,000 sturgeon seedlings had been successfully bred to maturity.

Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang is the earliest place in China to carry out large-scale artificial breeding of sturgeons. On the one hand, Qiandao Lake has good water quality and a cold water environment that sturgeons need to grow. On the other hand, it is located in the Yangtze River Delta, has strong consumption capacity and is close to foreign trade ports. The transportation is convenient at home and abroad, which is conducive to the connection of caviar produced in Qiandao Lake to overseas markets.

In 2006, Qiandao Lake produced the first can of domestically produced caviar. Since then, Zhejiang has become the largest caviar production base in the country.

Almost at the same time as Qiandao Lake, some people in Sichuan, nearly 2,000 kilometers away, decided to seize the opportunity of large-scale artificial breeding of sturgeon.

In 2002, Li Jun, who graduated from Dalian Fisheries College, began to try to breed sturgeons in Sichuan. In 2008, the Wenchuan earthquake caused serious damage to his breeding base in Pengzhou. Since then, relevant technicians have begun to conduct extensive research in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, trying to find more places suitable for sturgeon breeding in the southwest.

Image source: Sichuan Village

As a sub-cold water fish, sturgeon naturally grows in high-latitude areas and has extremely high requirements for the water temperature of the growing environment. 24°C is its sub-lethal water temperature. Sturgeons will die if the temperature exceeds 28°C. Both Zhejiang and Sichuan belong to low-latitude subtropical areas where the summers are hot. Continuous high temperatures exceeding 30°C will cause the water surface temperature to continue to rise, which can easily lead to high surface water temperatures in southern waters in summer, which is not conducive to sturgeon farming.

The relatively high terrain differences in the plateau and mountainous areas of western Sichuan form stratified temperature zones, which undoubtedly provide more options for sturgeon farming. In 2015, the largest caviar production base in Sichuan was established in Tianquan County, Ya'an, with a farming area of ​​46,000 square meters.

Tianquan County is located on the eastern slope of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. To the west of the sturgeon breeding base is Erlang Mountain, which is the first barrier for Sichuan to enter the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The vertical height difference in Tianquan County is large, and the annual average temperature is low, about 15°C. These conditions bring high-quality and year-round low-temperature plateau glacier meltwater to the base, providing an ideal habitat for artificial breeding of sturgeons.

Panoramic view of Tianquan County. Copyright image from the photo library. Reprinting and using it may cause copyright disputes.

In addition, Tianquan County is less than 200 kilometers away from Chengdu. Such convenient transportation conditions are conducive to the rapid export of caviar produced by the base from Chengdu International Airport to the whole country. According to Chengdu Customs data, the export value of Sichuan caviar in 2023 has reached 87.083 million yuan, becoming a new star in the province's export agricultural products.

Modern technology support

Of course, Sichuan's achievement is inseparable from the support of modern technology. From sturgeon seed breeding, artificial breeding, egg collection and processing to caviar production, the entire chain from source to final product is the result of the progress of domestic fishery technology and food processing technology.

The first step is to select and cultivate varieties that are better adapted to the local environment and have better egg-bearing capacity.

To this end, the Fisheries Research Institute of the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences has cultivated better quality sturgeon varieties through variety screening and hybrid breeding. Du Jun, secretary of the party committee of the institute, said in an interview with the media, "After years of breeding, they have increased the number of eggs in sturgeons, from an average of 10% to 12% of their body weight to 12% to 15%, and up to 18%."
Sichuan is still investing in research on sturgeon species. Currently, the Sichuan Fisheries Research Institute continues to search for sturgeon parents (male and female fish used in hybrid breeding) around the world to improve the genetic archive of the species, and conduct molecular genetic diversity analysis and genetic matching through multiple high-quality sturgeon parents to continuously screen and cultivate sturgeon hybrids with faster growth and stronger disease resistance.

Secondly, in the breeding process, technicians use scientific methods to carry out flow breeding in independent circular pools.

In Tianquan County, more than 200 circular water pools are built along the river. A clear channel named Sijing River is built beside the park, which introduces the perennially low-temperature mountain meltwater into the breeding area. As a migratory spawning fish, the number of eggs carried by sturgeons is related to the flowing water, which helps stimulate the development of the sturgeons' gonads and make them carry more eggs. Therefore, the water inlet of the fish pond adopts a sophisticated design, which is injected into the pool at an angle to make the water in the pool flow, forming a microcirculation system.

Sturgeon breeding base in Tianquan County. Image source: Sichuan Village

When the sturgeons grow to the stage where their eggs can be taken, Sichuan researchers have also optimized the technology for sex identification. Technicians can quickly identify the sex of sturgeons based on ultrasound examination and molecular marker identification technology. This solution has higher accuracy than the earlier puncture technology.

During the egg collection and caviar processing, all operations of the technicians are arranged to be performed in a sterile environment. In order to keep the taste of caviar as much as possible, the workers in the workshop need to manually complete 17 processes such as killing fish, dissecting, egg collection, salt mixing, and canning within 15 minutes. During this period, the salt concentration, manual stirring strength and duration are all crucial, and these steps determine the elasticity and taste of the fish eggs.

These processing and production standards also benefit from Sichuan's active learning of experience from technicians from international high-quality production areas. In 2013, an Iranian caviar master in his 70s was invited to Sichuan. It was not until the second year after he came to China that he was willing to teach his craft.

With the support of these modern technologies, high-quality caviar produced in Sichuan has gradually opened up the international market. By participating in major international professional exhibitions such as the Boston Seafood Show in North America, the Brussels Global Seafood Expo, and the Vigo International Seafood Exhibition in Spain, Sichuan's caviar has been on the international table.

The past four years have also been a period of rapid growth in Sichuan caviar exports. By 2022, Sichuan caviar sales have increased by more than 60% compared to 2019.

Sichuan people's gourmet genes begin to integrate caviar

While Sichuan caviar was bravely entering the international market, the Sichuan people, who are naturally fond of food and humorous, also began to think about integrating this new ingredient into the local culture.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

Chen Tianfu, the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Sichuan cuisine, has launched a fusion dish of caviar and traditional Sichuan cuisine. He combined caviar with glutinous rice and camphor tea duck in Sichuan cuisine, and added a small spoonful of caviar on the duck meat to make it taste richer.

"Its grains are fuller, and the salty flavor is richer and heavier, and it also brings out some nutty and milky flavors when you take a sip," Chen Tianfu said in an interview with CCTV. In the past, the caviar used in this dish was all imported, but now the dish that diners eat has been made entirely of Sichuan local caviar.

The picture comes from the Internet

The amazing journey of combining Sichuan cuisine and caviar has just begun.

However, China has achieved a counterattack in the caviar industry. On this difficult road, the Chinese have not only achieved breakthroughs in the artificial breeding, farming and processing of sturgeons, but also, with the joint efforts of researchers and technicians from all over the country, caviar has not only achieved large-scale mass production in China, but also has even reduced its price after it circulated into the international market.

In Sichuan, caviar is no longer just a new industry. As the discussion heats up, it is also being integrated into the local culture of curious Sichuan people.

Planning and production

Author: Yixiao Popular Science Creator

Review丨Liu Yadan, Researcher of Chinese Society of Fisheries

Planning丨Lin Lin

Editor: Yang Yaping

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin