Recently, there is a restoration work about the Zeng Family Grand Courtyard in Longmen Village, Longmen Town, Shizhong District, Neijiang City, a provincial-level cultural relic protection unit. This courtyard from Qing Dynasty, built in 1881, will be transformed into the Neijiang Sugar Industry History Museum. It will feature five themed sections, including “Origin of Sugar”, “Techniques of Sugar”, “Sugar Industry”, “Sugar Customs” and “Sugar City ” to explore how its sugar-making techniques have innovated through inheritance, bursting with contemporary vitality.

Zeng Family Grand Courtyard

The sugar-making techniques of Neijiang originated from the technology of producing sucrose introduced from India during the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty. Evolving through four stages, incuding “indigenous sugar production”, “semi-mechanized sugar production”, “small-scale mechanized pressing” and “large-scale mechanized sugar production”. There is a  developmental path from tradition to modernity.

Neijiang Sugar

On the international stage, Neijiang’s sugar industry has undertaken foreign aid missions. Since the 1980s, over 100 personnel has been dispatched by the Neijiang Sugar Factory to countries including Mali, Myanmar and Sierra Leone, serving as technical advisors, factory directors. They assisted in the construction of multiple modern sugar enterprises, making the sugar-making techniques of Neijiang a bond of friendship between China and other nations.

This history will be displayed by the Zeng Family Grand Courtyard with the restoration. In the future, this place will offer a panoramic view of the inheritance and innovation of Neijiang’s sugar industry, allowing the wisdom and responsibility carried by this ancient technique to continue spreading sweetness in the new era.