Yiwu brown sugar dates back more than 700 years, when Yiwu native Zhu Danxi, a great Chinese medical scientist in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), recorded the usage of brown sugar in one of his medical works. During the reign of Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty (1638-1661), Jia Weicheng brought in and promoted a wooden machine called a mutangche to make sugar, enabling the production of sugarcane to become commercially viable.

Yiwu brown sugar is light yellow with a little cyan.[Photo/yiwu.ezhejiang.gov.cn]

Yiwu brown sugar is light yellow with a little cyan. The sweet and tasty sugar is spongy and feels like silver sand without any dregs. In 1929, Yiwu brown sugar was granted the Special Award at the West Lake International Exposition. It has gained the agricultural product geographical indications registration certificate and is under national protection of geographical indications for agricultural products.

Yiting town in the city is the main Yiwu brown sugar-producing area and has been hailed as "the land of brown sugar". The technique for producing Yiwu brown sugar has been listed as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. In December 2014, the technique was officially included in the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage.