From Hong Kong Streets to Guangzhou Countryside: My Journey with Sourdough

I. The Beginning

I loved it.

The village where I stayed was in the North District of the New Territories. Due to its proximity to Shenzhen, it had been strategically earmarked as a new development zone years ago. Although most residents had been rooted there since their grandparents’ generation, the government treated them as non-existent due to the lack of officially recognised land and property titles. Years of campaigning failed to budge the government’s development plans. Fresh out of university, I arrived here carrying a fragile sense of solidarity. From the early days of high-spirited advocacy to the deep slump following heavy-handed crackdowns, in a climate we could not hope to resist, in a village where the end felt perpetually close, we anchored ourselves to life’s small things. For instance, how comforting it was to simply “care for” a lump of dough, watch it grow, and let it yield a little sourdough starter each day, which we could then use to bake bread. What a simple joy it was.

That jar of fermented dough was the “sourdough starter”. Mix grain flour with water and repeatedly “feed” it, allowing enough time for various yeasts and bacteria with different leavening powers and flavour profiles to settle and take root. Once the culture stabilises, you have your starter. Incorporating this starter into dough, allowing it to ferment, scoring and shaping it, proofing it once more, and then baking it—that is how sourdough bread is made.

I brought sourdough bread to my rural neighbours. Together we made traditional steamed buns with an old starter (a rarity in the south, particularly in Hong Kong), and also arranged to bake sourdough right beside the fields. In retrospect, they may not have been overly fond of the sourdough itself, but the bread kindled a shared curiosity for new things and new friends, alongside a longing for a fulfilling and healthy routine. In this way, the sourdough starter, much like ourselves, found its place in their everyday lives.

Keeping a sourdough starter alive requires daily attention, sustained by feeding it flour and water in a consistent ratio. This feeding nurtures a stable, suitable environment for a diverse microbiome. Temperature, hydration levels, feeding schedule, flour variety… Countless combinations yield countless microbial cultures, and with them, a boundless variety of bread flavours.

In many ways, Hong Kong’s villages mirror the ecology of a sourdough starter. Unfazed by the rise and fall of other local industries, they flourish untamed amid the relentless tide of urban expansion, cultivating loose yet remarkably resilient community networks within. Scattered plots of farmland and small to medium-sized workshops form the bedrock of many villagers’ lives. Older residents manage to look after themselves, while many working-age adults carve out a living outside the city’s relentless pressure, and countless creatures find refuge in these pockets. Yet, viewed through the cold calculus of mainstream economics, all of this amounts to little more than a footnote.

These semi-rural pockets resemble sourdough starters that have been left a little long between feedings. They harbour wayward cultures that may lack a vigorous rise and carry an unpredictable tang. Though they may not seem particularly vibrant, they are still capable of leavening a loaf, and will now and again yield a surprisingly unique flavour.

By 2019, a portion of the villagers were coerced into “voluntary relocation” – a euphemism for being channelled into government-subsidised high-rise flats for rent or purchase. This marked the twilight of a generations-old, self-reliant way of life on these “untamed” rural fringes. Demolition swept away the very foundations of community self-sufficiency, while those who resisted were often caricatured as stubborn holdouts or opportunistic troublemakers. Those moved into high-rises found themselves cast into genuine vulnerability, forced to rely on chain supermarkets, social services, and meagre government allowances, yet still denied a proper sense of home.

The friend who introduced me to sourdough is called Xiaodou. Having encountered it a few years back, she became utterly captivated, enthusiastically nurturing a variety of sourdough starters fed on different grain flours. She actively shared her starters and championed the idea of baking sourdough effortlessly at home. To her, sourdough shouldn’t be confined to upscale foreign bakeries, nor should it remain the preserve of those with overseas experience. It can be woven into the daily lives of housewives, busy professionals, or indeed anyone among the general public who wishes to exert a little more control over their everyday routine.

Baking sourdough is far more time-consuming than using instant yeast. Instant yeast is a highly purified strain; under the right conditions, it can leaven dough from mixing to baking in just three or four hours. With a programmable bread machine, the entire process can be left entirely unattended.

But sourdough? Before you even mix the dough, you must prepare an active levain, which takes a minimum of three or four hours. That’s followed by mixing, two fermentation stages, and finally baking, adding another six or seven hours. Ten hours for a single loaf—really, who has the time?!

What if, however, we shift our perspective and view making sourdough as companionship with a colony of living organisms? The microorganisms crucial to fermentation fluctuate between active and dormant states depending on their environment, with different strains naturally rising and falling in turn. By creating the right conditions (primarily temperature) to align the cultures with our own daily rhythms—for instance, slowing their growth with cooler temperatures when we’re too busy to tend to them—we can break that solid ten-hour block into shorter intervals that fit our schedule, stretching the process over two days or more. In this way, baking sourdough ceases to be a drain on our time and instead becomes a companion to our daily lives. Once you find a rhythm where the starter and your routine harmonise, you can freely enjoy the quiet pleasure of nurturing a loaf.

Xiaodou’s learning circle has gathered a group of friends drawn to sourdough. They meet roughly once a month to share the joy of baking bread and other fermented foods, and to swap ingredients. Each member operates like a miniature universe, baking bread for those around them. Particularly after 2019, the group has leaned on one another through moments of absurdity and despair, holding fast to the courage needed to carry on.

3

Sourdough in Commercial Bakeries

In 2020, after two years of baking bread at home, I decided to take a job at a bakery. I wanted to see how superior sourdough was made, and I began to consider making bread my livelihood.

I chose what I considered the best sourdough bakery in Hong Kong. Unlike many places that use ‘sourdough’ or ‘natural yeast’ as a marketing gimmick to sell overpriced, fast-fermented bread, this shop genuinely employs a sourdough starter for low-temperature, long-fermentation. Despite its large-scale output, the process takes three full days, from feeding the starter to pulling the loaves from the oven.

Unlike tiny, one-or-two-person artisan bakeries, this place operates a dedicated production kitchen with clearly divided stages—a point of which the owner is particularly proud. It proves that sourdough, despite its many unpredictable variables, can indeed be produced at scale while maintaining consistent quality.

The bakery’s starter is remarkably healthy. It is fed at fixed times each day and fermented at a steady temperature, developing a perfectly balanced, reliable flavour. Each day, the owner adjusts and prints out the recipes and production targets for the staff, who simply follow the standardised procedures.

The owner meticulously accounts for every variable to minimise unpredictability during production. He requires staff to photograph and report key stages, such as the dough temperature after mixing or its appearance before going into the oven. In this bakery, staff are viewed as the least critical component; as long as they can walk, use their hands, and follow basic instructions, they are sufficient. It is difficult to say whether the owner strives for absolute control because the staff are considered expendable, or whether it is his relentless drive for control that renders them expendable in the first place.

After five months there, I was completely drained. The physical strain was the lesser issue; primarily, I simply could not eat the bread anymore. The scent of baking would make my stomach turn with anxiety, dragging me back to that workshop suffused with criticism and complaint. I still consider the shop’s bread to be outstanding, but I could not bring myself to take another bite.

The bakers were miserable, yet the customers eating their bread were entirely unaware—and likely indifferent. The bakery had deliberately separated the workshop labourers from the retail space, carefully reshaping the atmosphere and values presented to its patrons. I cannot discount the shop’s value in championing good sourdough to the public, but it was clear I could no longer be part of its production.

Worse still, the joy I once found in baking to share with others had vanished. I kept telling myself my baking just was not good enough. The dogs I lived with during that period helped me work through so much of the surplus that they would now turn away at the mere sight of it. I was utterly demoralised.

IV. Sourdough Takes to the Streets

After 2019, compounded by the pandemic, many lost faith in the establishment, even as their freedom of movement grew increasingly restricted. “How about selling breakfast bread outside the stations?” suggested a friend whose stable work had been abruptly cut short by the shifting political climate.

Just outside a suburban station lies a wide-open space. Part of it is a government-planned weekend market constructed from shipping containers, while the adjacent open ground is frequently occupied by local aunties and older ladies selling home-grown produce and even late-night snacks. Though unauthorised street vending is illegal, and regulations were tightened further under pandemic gathering restrictions and compulsory mask orders, more people were risking it to make ends meet.

With the mindset that “I was going to practise bread-making anyway, so it would only be better if people actually ate it and even paid for it,” we tucked our loaves under our arms and headed out. During the pandemic, heightened awareness of health and food brought sourdough to more people’s attention. Coupled with public sympathy and support for young people, we found ourselves in a remarkably relaxed and welcoming environment from the very beginning.

Selling face-to-face made trust easy to build. Alongside the sourdough and sweet pastries, friends who love pour-over coffee would sometimes drop by to lend a hand. We’d also bring out our sourdough starters to share with anyone who wanted some.

Remarkably, even during a period when everyone was masked, people readily accepted our complete lack of pre-packaging. We’d simply place the freshly baked bread into paper bags on the spot. Some even bent the rules, lowering their masks to eat bread, sip coffee, and chat and laugh together.

But beyond just selling bread, mingling with the aunties and older ladies at their stalls was what truly thrilled us: helping each other with sales, asking neighbours to taste new batches, or coordinating to play hide-and-seek with enforcement officers when they came to “raid” the area.

V. The Relocating Sourdough, The Community We Yearn For

I returned from Hong Kong to mainland China just before the pandemic restrictions were lifted, spending a week in quarantine with my sourdough starter in tow. Even in autumn, temperatures in the Lingnan region stay above 25°C, meaning the starter needs feeding at least once a day. Before I left, I packed it into an insulated cooler lined with ice packs, bringing along enough flour for regular feedings. Keeping up with the daily feeds was straightforward, but knowing what to do with the daily surplus was another matter altogether. Surprisingly, it was during quarantine that I finally had a breakthrough: I started steaming non-sour mantou with the starter to replace the dreadful isolation meals.

It was the most tense period before restrictions were finally eased. The moment quarantine ended, I took my dog and headed out to the Guangzhou countryside to visit a sourdough bakery in Yilin Village, Conghua. Until then, I had plenty of theories about what ingredients bread should call for, but very little hands-on experience. When you treat your starter and dough with the same reverence you’d give to living creatures, it naturally follows that you’d want to use additive-free or organic flour. Yet I was still quite surprised to see that Yilin’s ‘Eat Earth’ workshop relied entirely on domestic flour from small ecological farms. Imported organic flour is not any more expensive, but domestic flour tends to be less consistent and differs significantly from European varieties, making it considerably harder to produce loaves with stable quality that hold up to traditional European standards.

The bread from the workshop doesn’t boast any extraordinary flavour, but it carries a quiet, everyday strength. Before you know it, it becomes part of your daily meals, a food you find yourself missing from time to time. In this ecologically balanced countryside, even the bread is made with spring water – an experience entirely new to me.

More fortuitously, the workshop is housed within the Yinlin Ecological Farm, making it commonplace to seamlessly weave the farm’s produce into the loaves – brown rice, dried lychees, sweet potatoes, lemons, and so on. I’ve come to realise that the ecological flour, fruit and vegetables from small-scale farmers aren’t simply used as substitutes for conventional ingredients; they form the very heart of the bread. What emerges is by no means a mere replica of commercial loaves with swapped ingredients, but a bread uniquely imbued with the vitality of the land on which the workshop sits.

Right here in the village are everyday sourdough bakers and eaters, lives intertwined through the simple exchange of bread for homegrown ingredients and handmade crafts. The workshop collectively nurtures the starter, and the starter, in turn, nurtures a community woven together from humans and other living things.

Here, I finally ran out of the German flour I’d been accustomed to, and began feeding the starter with ecological flour from local small-scale farmers. Armed with a starter charged with this new vitality, I returned to my unfamiliar hometown, hoping to nurture fresh communities and connections, and to help foster a shared environment where all things can thrive in symbiosis.

Foodthink Author

Sanjiao

Passionate about uncovering the nature of food and ingredients, I now seek to make a living through baking, forging connections with all living things.

 

 

 

 

Foodthink Says

Fermentation allows us to rebuild our connections with one another, forge new communities and social bonds, and reclaim a measure of food sovereignty within an increasingly homogenised food empire. Want to hear more stories that have “fermented” alongside fermented foods? Tonight at 19:00, Foodthink and Lakeshore Culture will host the fourth meeting of The Fermentation Bible book club at Rendez-vous Bookstore, featuring insightful sharing from guests Shuyu and Jing Yan. Places at the in-person event are almost full; please sign up or reserve a spot for the live stream.

This weekend, Foodthink’s “Fermentation Awakening Festival” will join forces with the Chengdu Lifestyle Market (26 Nov) and Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market (25–26 Nov) to host fermentation markets in Chengdu and Nanning. All are welcome to taste homemade fermented delicacies from partner farmers and experience the magic of fermentation!

 

About the “Fermentation Awakening Festival”

Launched by Foodthink in October 2023, the festival collaborates with dozens of co-creators across the country, including farmers’ markets, farms, craft fermenters, restaurants, publishing houses, and non-profit organisations. Centred on fermented foods, it brings a range of online and offline events to cities and communities nationwide over two months, including screenings of The Alchemy of Food video series, fermentation-themed markets, book clubs, film screenings, sharing sessions, workshops, and tastings.

Follow Foodthink’s WeChat Official Account and the social media channels of our co-creating partners to stay updated on the latest videos, articles, podcasts, and events. Discover local fermentation activities, connect with fellow fermentation enthusiasts, and awaken a new way of living together!

Fermentation | Awakening | Lifestyle | Festival 

– Organisers –

Foodthink  Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market

– Co-creators –

Lakeshore Culture  Bu Le Cheese  Yi Jian Bread  Xiucai Tofu Shop

Happy Lab  Nine Inch Craft Beer  Jicai Garden  Da Xiao Coffee

Qiao Li Ke  Niu Pi Tang  Bai Hu Lao Cun  coffea SHED

Chengdu Lifestyle Market  Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market  Feng Nian Qing

(List subject to updates)

– Supporters –

Tianren Culture  Heyi Holdings

Editor: Tianle