Long before artisanal grain became fashionable, a modest farming district in central Taiwan was producing rice so prized that colonial administrators designated it imperial tribute — sent directly to Japan's Emperor. Nearly three centuries later, Fengyuan still grows that rice, and the secret behind its unusual sweetness lies in a 300-year-old canal and an unlikely side effect of hydroelectric engineering.
Fengyuan's Proverb Points to a Rice-Country Identity
Fengyuan, formerly known by its Indigenous name Hulutun, sits along the edge of the Dajia River basin in Taichung. Residents there have long repeated a Taiwanese saying that distills the district's character: "clear water, white rice, sweet Fengyuan women." The phrase is less folksy than it sounds. The river water channeled into the district's paddies is among the clearest in western Taiwan, and it has nourished a short-grain variety — marketed today as Hulutun rice — long celebrated for being white, fragrant, sweet, and satisfyingly chewy.
Taiwan's Water Resources Agency has documented this heritage in its official publications, recording that Hulutun rice was once designated tribute grain presented to the Japanese Emperor — a distinction roughly equivalent to the modern category of premium-grade ponlai rice.
A Land-for-Water Deal Launched 300 Years of Irrigation History
The water infrastructure that makes this rice possible dates to 1733, when a Cantonese settler named Zhang Dajing negotiated an unusual arrangement with the Anli, an Indigenous Pingpu community in what is now central Taichung. Zhang had learned the local dialect and married a village chief's daughter, making him a trusted intermediary between Han Chinese settlers and Indigenous landholders. When drought threatened the settlers' harvests, he proposed trading cultivated land in exchange for water rights — a deal that gave both sides something they urgently needed.
The canal Zhang built became the Hulutun Canal's earliest predecessor. The following year, he partnered with six other investors to expand the system further, extending irrigation across multiple villages. The canal changed hands across successive dynasties and colonial governments. In 1902, three overlapping waterways were merged under a unified public administration, formally establishing the Hulutun Canal as a public water-management body — one of the earliest examples of public irrigation governance in Taiwan. A further expansion in 1923 drove a tunnel through bedrock to draw water from the Shikang area, feeding a new southern branch of the system.
Seven Hydroelectric Plants Became an Accidental Culinary Asset
The Dajia River descends from the Snow Mountain range at one of the steepest gradients of any river in western Taiwan, making it ideal for hydroelectric development. Seven power stations — Deji, Qingshan, Gukuan, Tianlun, Maan, Sheliao, and Houli — now line the river from its upper reaches down to the Taichung plains.
Those plants, built purely for electricity generation, inadvertently altered the quality of water reaching Fengyuan's paddies. Water routed through the turbines travels a far shorter path than it would along the river's natural meanders before reaching the Shikang intake point — effectively cutting the journey time and limiting the water's exposure to ambient air. By the time it enters the irrigation network, the temperature is approximately 2 degrees Celsius lower than under natural flow conditions.
That margin may seem slight, but it extends the rice growing season by ten days, from the standard 120 days to 130. Cooler irrigation water suppresses overnight respiration in the rice plant: the sugars and starches built up through daytime photosynthesis are not burned off during the night, allowing the grain to fill out gradually and accumulate greater density. The result is a kernel that is noticeably heavier, sweeter, and stickier than rice grown in warmer paddies.
From Imperial Tables to the Presidential Dining Room
Fengyuan's rice reputation has outlasted the colonial-era designation. Former President Tsai Ing-wen, during a visit to the district, became so absorbed in hearing residents recount the Hulutun Canal's history that she reportedly finished an entire bowl of rice without realizing it — prompting her to remark that the grain lived up to its reputation.
Urban expansion has gradually reduced the acreage under rice cultivation in Fengyuan. Today the district's Farmers' Association leads preservation and marketing efforts, working with local growers to cultivate Taiken No. 9, a japonica variety well suited to the area's cooler water conditions. The association packages the rice in formats ranging from 30-kilogram bulk bags to vacuum-sealed three-kilogram retail packs — a concession to modern kitchens, though the grain inside remains the same one that once reached the Japanese imperial table.
