Letter From Hunan It once powered a revolution. Now, Hunan cuisine is conquering taste buds

Xiangcai's piquant, savoury and some say addictive flavours are gaining popularity

- Lim Min Zhang

CHANGSHA - In the bustling capital of central Hunan province, Western chains from Starbucks to McDonald's — and even big-name Chinese brands such as HeyTea — take a back seat.

Instead, what are drawing queues are Hunanese versions of street food such as black spicy-and-sour smelly tofu, deep-fried sugar-coated glutinous rice balls, as well as Chayan Yuese, a line of milk tea sold mostly in Hunan.

Along the main shopping street of Huangxing, I notice a pop-up museum on latiao (a spicy snack originating from Hunan), a shrine of sorts for foodies akin to the McSpicy Museum in Singapore.

I am in Changsha to find out more about Hunan cuisine, or xiangcai, whose piquant, savoury and, some say, addictive flavours have grown on Chinese and Singaporean tastebuds alike.

Xiang is the name of the river that runs through Hunan, and also sounds like the word for fragrant in Mandarin.

In China, there are eight major cuisines including the more famous ones like Sichuanese or Cantonese, with Hunanese food quickly catching up in popularity in recent years.

A March 2025 industry report said the market in China for xiangcai is estimated to be worth some 108 billion yuan (S$19.2 billion) in 2024 — a year-on-year increase of 8.9 per cent, the fastest growth out of all cuisines surveyed.

The growth is not confined to China.

In Singapore, brands such as Xiang Xiang Hunan Cuisine and Nong Geng Ji have expanded quickly.

Xiang Xiang, a brand founded in Singapore by two Hunan natives in 2009, launched its 16th outlet here in VivoCity in May 2025. Nong Geng Ji, a Chinese brand, has opened seven outlets since it made the Republic the first stop of its overseas expansion in 2023.

Xiangcai is known for being spicy, with chopped chillies common in its most representative dishes, such as yellow beef stir-fry and steamed fish head with chopped bell peppers.