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Starters and koji from Southern China

Xiaoqu / jiuyao (small qu, "wine medicine")小曲

Xiaoqu is the family of small Chinese starters made from rice or rice bran, often with herb powder. The pieces are seeded with last year's qu, kept warm for one to three days while Rhizopus moulds and yeasts grow over them, then dried hard. One small piece both turns rice starch to sugar and ferments the sugar to alcohol.

Fully documentedStarters and koji4.3 days – 6 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedRecipes differ by region and maker and have no fixed amounts. See the Shaoxing jiuyao entry for one standardised method.
Rice flour or rice branRice and rice bran are the main raw materials[tang2019]
Herb powderChinese herbs have long been added; Shaoxing jiuyao uses water-pepper leaf (Persicaria hydropiper) powder[tang2019][sx-spec]
Water[sx-spec]
Mother qu (muqu)Matured xiaoqu from the year before, used as seed[tang2019][sx-spec]
Starterback-slop: old qu (muqu) from the year before seeds the new pieces

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.3 days – 6 days

Start
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What changes: Rice flour is mixed with herb powder and water

Step 1 of 4
Mix rice flour or bran with herb powder and water
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Rhizopus mycelium
Yeasts

Shaoxing jiuyao uses new-crop early indica rice flour with water below 15 % and at least 95 % through 50 mesh. Output: damp starter dough.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Xiaoqu is the family of small Chinese starters made from rice or rice bran, often with herb powder. The pieces are seeded with last year's qu, kept warm for one to three days while Rhizopus moulds and yeasts grow over them, then dried hard. One small piece both turns rice starch to sugar and ferments the sugar to alcohol. Made in 4 steps over 4.3 days – 6 days. The longest step, keep warm in husk-lined vats or a warm room, takes 30 h – 3 days (Zhejiang Liquor Industry Association 2025) and runs at 28–38 °C (Zhejiang Liquor Industry Association 2025). Rhizopus and Saccharomyces (21.95 %); S. cerevisiae was the most isolated yeast do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 h – 3 daysReported[sx-spec][guan2025]Keep warm in husk-lined vats or a warm room
Temperature28–38 °CReported[sx-spec][guan2025]Keep warm in husk-lined vats or a warm room

What makes this one different

Xiaoqu is small, made from rice or bran, and incubated for only one to three days, so moulds and yeasts both stay alive in it. Daqu is a large wheat or barley brick cured for weeks, and wheat qu mainly supplies enzymes.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Shaoxing jiuyao (酒药)The Shaoxing rice-flour cube with water-pepper powder; see its own entry.
  • Medicinal xiaoqu (药小曲)Many Chinese herbs are added.
  • Pure-culture bran xiaoqu (纯种根霉曲)Bran is seeded with chosen moulds such as Rhizopus, grown 2–3 days at 28–30 °C, dried at 40–50 °C, sieved and mixed with yeast at 10 % of the bran.

Made the xiaoqu / jiuyao way

Safety

Xiaoqu and xiaoqu liquor are made in an open environment (Tang et al.), so the microbes differ by place and maker. The Shaoxing draft sets moisture at 11 % or less, and picks last year's qu for seed only if it fermented normally, is free of insect damage and is low in acid. Gene sequencing found Staphylococcus, Escherichia–Shigella and Klebsiella among the bacteria of xiaoqu. It names the genera only, not the species or strains.

Hazards the sources name: Sequencing reads of Escherichia–Shigella (listed among the bacteria of the four xiaoqu of Tang et al.) and Klebsiella (5.15 % of bacterial reads on average across 28 xiaoqu); genus level only, species and strains not identified.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Tang et al. (2019) say Chinese herbs have long been added to xiaoqu, and that Sichuan xiaoqu often takes in muqu, the matured xiaoqu of the year before.

  1. [dong2024] Dong W., Zhang J., Zou M., Chen L., Zhu L., Zhang L., Zhang G., Tang J., Yang Q., Hu Y., Chen S. 2024, High-throughput sequencing analysis of microbiota and enzyme activities in Xiaoqu from seven provinces in southern China, Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology 34(11):2290–2300paper
  2. [tang2019] Tang Q., He G., Huang J., Wu C., Jin Y., Zhou R. 2019, Characterizing relationship of microbial diversity and metabolite in Sichuan Xiaoqu, Frontiers in Microbiology 10:696paper
  3. [guan2025] Guan T., Yin X., Jiang Y. et al. 2025, Study on the preparation of compound mold enhanced Xiaoqu and its effect on the yield and flavor of Qingxiangxing baijiu, Food Chemistry X 29:102721paper
  4. [sx-spec] Zhejiang Liquor Industry Association, draft group standard 绍兴酒(绍兴黄酒)酿造工艺技术规范 (a draft for comment), clauses 3.1 and 6.1 (jiuyao), posted on ttbz.org.cn 2025-09-22other