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A Sea of Roses in Bajie Town

By GoKunming Staff in on July 30, 2021

Bajie Town (八街镇) is located in the southwest of Anning (安宁), which is to the west of Kunming. At an altitude of 1940 meters and an average annual temperature of 14.8℃, it is an ideal place for planting pollution-resistant edible roses. Bajie Town has been cultivating roses since the 1950s and 1960s, with an area of nearly 25,000 acres. It is the main growing site for edible roses in Yunnan Province.

The cultivation of edible roses in Bajie Town has become a unique tourist attraction in Yunnan. The peaceful valley is full of fuchsia roses which form a beautiful sea of flowers. When the breeze blows through, the scent of these fragrant flowers will make you feel truly relaxed.

Is it enough to simply look at the flowers? The roses in Bajie Town are not only there to be seen, but also eaten, and there are so many different ways to enjoy them! Flower cakes, dried roses, rose sauce, rose soap, and rose wine, this is truly a feast of roses.

Rose flower cake

April to May each year is the best time to pick the roses. Picking starts in the early morning and goes on until around 9 o'clock. After 9am the temperature begins to rise, and the aroma of rose flower becomes volatile, which can affect the quality of the flower. The picked roses are then manually screened and stored in a freezer or transported by refrigerated trucks to the factory for processing.

To make Rose Flower Cake the first step is the filling. The petals are ground into a paste, to which honey and sugar is added, before being refrigerated, to reduce the bitterness. The best flavor comes from the rose filling, and this single ingredient creates a complex new flavor when added to the pastry. The rose filling neutralizes the oiliness of the pastry, and the pastry absorbs the sweetness in the flower filling, so that everything works perfectly in combination.

Rose banquet

Bafangyuan (八方缘) Restaurant in Bajie Town has launched a unique banquet of edible roses. The restaurant not only focuses on the taste of its dishes, but each dish also has a unique presentation. After a five-year process of refining and improvement, the Rose Banquet has been perfected. In addition, the roses in the ingredients are all freshly picked, so every dish is full of fragrance.