CHENGDU, June 21 (Xinhua) -- The clear water of the famous Grape Well had drained away just two hours after the recent earthquake in Sichuan, leaving only a few dead fish lying on pebbles covered in mud.
Heart-broken locals came out from shelters and gathered around the dried-up well, a cultural relic, sharing memories of the thousand-year-old well dating back to the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280 A.D.).
Standing in the crowd, Peng Changjin decided to sell the last 300 bowls of the "Grape Well rice jelly" he had made the day before. With a refreshing and delicate taste, the local specialty helps relieve the summer heat.
The rice jelly enjoys national fame, and the secret behind the recipe lies in the well, to be exact, the water in the well.
In the southern part of Shuanghe Township of the quake-stricken Changning County, the well got its name from the grape-like bubbles that the fresh water produces all year round.
The quake made everything different. People wept over the loss of the sweet and familiar taste in the late-night quake that took away 13 lives, injured hundreds more and knocked down tens of thousands of houses.
For Peng, sorrows were hard to hide, and tears rolled down his face.
The 56-year-old vendor has spent more than a decade in his snack bar just beside the Grape Well, making and selling rice jelly of various flavors -- brown sugar, watermelon, strawberry, pineapple and others, at only 2.5 yuan (about 36 U.S. cents) a bowl.
"When I was a child, I used to cling to my mom all day long for a bowl of rice jelly," Peng said, recalling the greatest joy of his childhood.
Business was good, and Peng could sell up to more than one thousand bowls of rice jelly a day in peak seasons. People came one after another from surrounding cities and counties every day, he said.
Food aficionados can find some 20 rice jelly snack bars along a single street in Shuanghe. As the industry develops, authentic rice jelly made with Grape Well water embraces modern logistics and appears in popular shopping areas across the country, including Beijing's Wangfujing and Chunxi Road in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province.
The local government developed a farming area of about 133 hectares in 2017 to grow special grains for the rice jelly.
Fang Liang, a member of the township committee of the Communist Party of China, said that the estimated output value of the industry exceeded 500 million yuan last year.
"There won't be any Grape Well rice jelly," people sighed, dying for a bowl from Peng. "Every bite counts."
The rice jelly sold out almost immediately. With an empty bowl in hand, nobody wanted to leave. It was the moment when they found that the quake had taken not only their houses away, but their beloved snack.
A wonderful surprise came on the third morning after the 6.0-magnitude earthquake rattled Changning at 10:55 p.m. on June 17, impacting around a quarter million people.
The Grape Well was retaining water by itself. The water level had risen to some 40 to 50 centimeters and seemed to continue to rise.
Experts carried out on-the-spot investigations and found that water came back since the bottom cracks made by the strong temblor narrowed after a certain accumulation of soil.
"Although the water looks a bit muddy right now, it's sure to be clear again after a certain period of natural purification," said Qian Jiangpeng, deputy head of the Sichuan Institute of Geological Engineering Investigation.
There won't be any problem making rice jelly with the water after it's purified, he told Peng, who was overjoyed at the good news that the Grape Well rice jelly would keep its name.
Reconstruction work in Changning is about to begin as relief and resettlement are still underway.
Upon the return of the Grape Well rice jelly, Peng had an idea to commemorate the rebirth of Changning and its people.
"I'm going to add the 'plain' flavor to my menu," he said. "It's a gift from nature, and we're starting over."
