Job leaves taster in high spirits
Gao Ling swirls the contents of a glass of baijiu, a Chinese distilled alcoholic beverage made from grain, noting its transparent appearance and sweet bouquet before taking a sip.
“Observing the color, smelling the odor and tasting the flavor are the three key steps to assessing baijiu,” said Gao, a senior Chinese spirits taster with the Anhui Ying jia Distillery i n East China’s Anhui province.
Her gentle voice suddenly perks up as she begins to talk about the liquor, while a big smile spreads across her face.
“Liquor making and tasting is the kind of job that requires a happy state of mind,” she said. “Otherwise, it will taste different.”
It’s hard to tell whether Gao, who is in her 40s, was born to be a liquor taster due to her mild temperament, or the nature of the work has made her so easygoing.
“It’s a job that demands patience,” she said, adding that she once spent a whole week deliberating a formula.
Every other day, Gao goes to the distillery, removing the lids of containers that weigh 500 kilograms each to taste a small sample of between 70 and 80 different types of baijiu and grade them. The whole process takes at least three hours.
Gao swallows one-third of each sip of baijiu and spits out the rest.
“This way, I can assess the liquor without getting drunk.”
But the job has its drawbacks. Gao has started to develop problems with her stomach. “My tongue often gets numb, and I feel nauseous,” she said.
However, health issues have never stopped her.
“The most basic ability a spirits taster requires is to be able to spot two similar sam- ples of liquor out of five,” Gao said.
“Of course, a sharp sense of taste and smell are crucial, but diligence is more important,” she said, adding that 80 percent of her success has been the result of hard work.
In 2005, she became one of 160 national-level liquor judges — the highest honor for spirits tasters in China. She managed to retain the title, which is awarded every five years, in 2010 and again in 2015.
Gao discovered her talent in this field relatively late in life. In 1989, age 19, she joined the distillery after graduating from high school, working in a few other departments, including packaging and distribution.
It was not until about 10 years later, when she achieved the top score on a training course, that Gao discovered her talent.
In 1996, she was promoted and moved to the distillery’s research center before starting to train apprentices in 2000.
Xu Guangsheng, one of Gao’s students who is now a liquor-making master at Yingjia, said it was Gao who spotted his gift. “Without her, I would probably still be in the workshop.”
During the past 17 years, Gao has trained more than 50 apprentices, with a number of them going on to become baijiu- making and tasting masters at the distillery or elsewhere in the industry.
Gao believes training is an effective way to spot talent and learn professional skills. Each
Gao Ling, a senior Chinese spirits taster in Anhui province in her laboratory at the Anhui Yingjia Distillery in Lu’an, Anhui
year, she holds training courses for more than 500 staff members over a month, and each month, she holds tasting workshops for more than 100 people.
It’s not just through training that Gao builds close relationships with her students — she also tastes baijiu made by them. “It is only by tasting their baijiu that I can suggest how they can improve.”
“Liquor making and tasting is subjective, so I try my best to share my honest opinion with them, and leave them to figure out the rest,” Gao said.
The job comes with certain restrictions. For example, spirits tasters must not eat spicy food. One of the biggest drawbacks for Gao is that she cannot use makeup.
“No perfume, no lipstick and no skin care products with fragrance,” she said.
But Gao said the positives far outweigh any restrictions. “When my liquor wins praise or positive feedback, I feel like the proudest woman in the world.” Two men were sentenced to 10 years, and 10 years and six months respectively, and each fined 100,000 yuan ($14,500) in Xi’an on May 2 for producing and attempting to distribute fake bank notes. In their attempts to send the counterfeit bank notes to another suspect in July, they pretended they were sending mobile phone sim cards. A courier, surnamed Yang, sought police help when he suspected the contents of the packages were not sim cards and the men refused to show him their identity cards. Police later seized a large amount of fake bank notes and related equipment used to produce them at a house rented by the men. A suspected robber, surnamed Tang, who was on police wanted lists in several mainland provinces, was recently detained in Daye. Tang, 36, said that in his attempts to avoid being detained, he had even failed to take his wife to hospital after she was seriously injured when his car collided with a truck in January. Tang’s wife later died from her injuries. Tang is suspected of committing robberies in many cities, stealing property worth a total of more than 1 million yuan ($145,000). A 6-year-old girl, surnamed Rong, who had a cough and a fever for three years has been relieved of her symptoms after doctors removed a melon seed from one of her lungs during a bronchoscopy at Hunan People’s Hospital on May 1. Rong, who lives in Loudi, was taken to see doctors in Changsha, who found the melon seed had sprouted in her lung. Rong’s mother said she once caught Rong putting melon seeds into her mouth when she was only 3 years old, but she had not considered that one may have entered her lung. A 12-year-old girl, surnamed Yu, who had been missing for 26 hours, was found hiding under a stairwell in a building of her residential community in Changsha on April 30. The sixth-grade student said she hid because she did not want to attend extra classes during the May Day holiday. Yu left home for an English training course at 8 am on April 29, but she did not return home after class at 12 pm. When her parents contacted the school, Yu’s teacher said she had not attended the class. Yu’s family said they spent more than a day scouring the city for her before she was found.
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A female hiker, surnamed Peng, who had fallen down a cliff, was rescued after being found by a senior citizen doing his morning exercises in Jinan on May 2. The man sought police help when he saw the 26-year-old Peng, who had fallen the previous evening, stuck in a tree. It took firefighters and police officers more than two hours to free Peng and transport her to a nearby hospital.