Delicious rice cakes from Yuhuan, Wenzhou. [Photo/Tide News]

As the weather cools, the familiar aroma of handmade rice cakes once again fills the air in Yuhuan, a county-level city in Taizhou, Zhejiang province. Customers flocked to traditional rice cake workshops to buy these delicacies, according to Tide News on Oct 31.

In the workshops, the process begins with a milling machine grinding glutinous rice into a fine powder. A skilled artisan kneads it thoroughly before adding salt or brown sugar. The mixture is then steamed. Some of the steamed rice flour is fed into a machine to form rice cake strips, or is hand-kneaded and shaped by the artisans.

"Machine-made rice cakes are a bit firmer, while handmade ones are softer and suitable for all ages," explained Lin Guoqing, a rice cake artisan.

Lin also notes that local customers from Yuhuan often simply drive to the workshops to buy rice cakes, while those from Shanghai, Hangzhou, and other places place orders via WeChat or phone.

"Although the costs of making rice cakes have risen this year, we have kept the price of our handmade rice cakes the same as last year. Plain handmade rice cakes are 8 yuan (112 cents) per kilogram, and brown sugar handmade rice cakes are 11 yuan per kilogram," said Lin.