"Annoying" forced labor
Qiu Yubo's great grandfather, Qiu Wanchun (known as "Dustpan Chun" for the dustpans he used to make in the slow season for sesame oil), founded the family's sesame-oil business four generations ago. Qiu Yubo's grandfather, Qiu Juzhong (nicknamed "Sesame-Oil Juzhong"), used to like to tell stories about the sesame-oil business back when the Japanese ruled Taiwan. Qiu Yubo recalls his grandfather relating how stringently sales of edible oils were controlled during World War II. There were eight sesame-oil businesses in Dashu in those days, most of which extracted their oils at remote locations hidden in mountain forests. They posted lookouts at the foot of the mountains, who would warn them to flee in the event of an "incident" by pulling on a wire connected to where the processors were working further up the mountain. Those who didn't get away before the Japanese police turned up could count on a vicious beating. These underground producers were clever about the distribution of their oils as well, usually hiding barrels of oil in piles of just-harvested longan that masked their pungent sesame scent.
Qiu Yubo's father Qiu Wenzhen, who recalls having an explosive temper in his youth, began helping out with the family business in second grade. Bushy-browed and strongly built, Qiu Wenzhen learned his craft on the job while still attending school, and by the eighth grade had mastered enough to be able to shoulder a heavy load. He says the work used to be more onerous: once you set the process in motion, you couldn't stop. If he made a mistake, his father would let fly with his long-stemmed wooden pipe and wouldn't hold back. "I really hated the work. I thought of it as forced labor, and considered quitting any number of times," recalls the elder Qiu.
Having said that, Qiu Wenzhen has spent half his life working with sesame oil, and he's been "reformed" by it: "Actually, sesame oil is pretty endearing stuff. It's the most stable and 'moderate' [from the standpoint of Traditional Chinese Medicine] of the edible oils. If you understand it, it will be your friend for life." He adds that sesame "saved his life," explaining that he was a sickly child whom doctors were unable to help until his father drew on a family recipe-a glass a day of a mixture of black sesame, milk, and egg yolk-to build up his strength. The tonic greatly improved his health and helped him more quickly gain a grasp of the process of making sesame oil.
After Qiu Wenzhen completed his military service, his wife, Wang Zhuhui, encouraged him to formally take over the family business. He then set about developing ways to improve his sesame toasters, cooling bins, crushers, and presses. He ended up leaving only two key steps unchanged: hand steaming the sesame seeds and toasting them over a wood fire.
Qiu Wenzhen explains that the sesame is steamed to soften the oil in the seeds to facilitate extraction during the pressing. Stirring the sesame seeds by hand during the steaming ensures that they heat more evenly and completely. Sesame steamed mechanically, on the other hand, retains a great deal of water that prevents the extracted oil from being stored for long. Most factories simply forego steaming in favor of using a catalyst to dissolve the oil, which is then mechanically extracted. Unfortunately, this rapid, high-volume process destroys the nutritive content of the sesame and requires that vegetable oil and other additives be added to the resulting product to improve its flavor.
Qiu continues to use wood fires to toast the seeds because they are "gentler" and produce less smoke than charcoal fires, but generate plenty of heat. Plus, the phytoncides in the wood enhance the flavor of the oil.