Dashu Sesame Oil--A 100-Year-Old Family Business

Taiwanese consumers' tastebuds have become less discerning over the years. Though we still consume sesame oil, we grow very little sesame in Taiwan and we've largely lost the knowledge of how to press it traditionally, by hand. Instead, we've become accustomed to the convenience of the mechanically processed oils sold in the supermarket.

Except in Kaohsiung's Dashu Township. If you ask folks there where to buy top-quality sesame oil, they'll send you straight to Dashu Sesame Oil. Dashu is the home of the Qiu family, who know sesame oil inside and out, use only domestic sesame seeds in their products, and have passed the traditional process methods down through the generations. Just try not to get addicted to their fine oils!

The dark-skinned 24-year-old Qiu Yubo comes across as sunny, bashful, and a little bit young, but he's already bearing the burdens of the heir-apparent of the 100-year-old family business.

As a child, Qiu never spent his summer "vacations" fooling around and taking it easy. Instead, he watched his parents set aside their usual business in order to drag heavy equipment out of a corner of their home, clean up the stove, split wood, and begin the exhaustive dawn-to-dusk work of making sesame oil. "As the eldest son, I had to help out when my parents were working that hard," recalls Qiu.

The whole family chipped in, putting in a grueling month producing incredibly pure sesame oils that left them with sore muscles, but earned accolades from neighbors and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Selecting the seeds

"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.

Filtering

Reopening an old shop

Production at the Qius' storefront home came to a halt three years ago as the family resolved an inheritance dispute triggered by the passing of 86-year-old Sesame-Oil Juzhong. Qiu Wenzhen resolved to soldier on and put a fresh shine on their old shingle in spite of the conflict and his own long flirtation with giving up the exhausting business of making sesame oil.

After talking to his son about whether he'd be interested in continuing the family business, Qiu Wenzhen raised money to buy a location and build a new 6,000-square-foot factory. He also improved and integrated his toasting and crushing processes, increasing daily production to about 70 kilograms. Then he poured a lifetime of knowledge into a new ginger-sesame oil commemorating the reopening. This new product, which marries the company's old standby with ginger, is a favorite with Taiwanese expats and Japanese tourists.

Now capable of running the business himself, Qiu Yubo typically spends two or three days a week at the factory making oil with his mother in addition to running a Dashu eyeglasses shop.

For years, Dashu Sesame Oil has depended on Qiu Wenzhen to deliver their products to markets as far afield as Pingtung and Tainan in his truck. But, in response to the earnest requests of Hualien's Azhibao handicrafts shop, in April the family broke with tradition and began allowing another company to distribute their products.

Qiu Wenzhen admits that he gets irritated when customers insist on haggling. He has even occasionally told those focused only on price to look elsewhere for their oil, his "it's their loss" attitude reflecting a craftsman's pride in his work.

But Qiu is willing to adapt. His new iteration of the old family business rolled out several new services last year, including home delivery of their products, and bookings of group visits to the factory and weekend meals prepared by Mama Qiu using the family's sesame oil and other premium ingredients. Asked how he feels about taking over the business and his ambitions, Qiu Yubo says that traditional businesses like his bet on their experience. They can't out-compete bulk manufacturers and they don't make big money, but they can be run profitably for a long time. "When all's said and done, we're a business with a conscience and the fulfillment of a pledge to our ancestors."

Steaming