Chunche facts for kids
A Chunche (pronounced "choon-chuh") is a special building used in Turpan, a city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. People in Turpan use these unique buildings to make delicious raisins! It's like a giant, natural drying machine for grapes.
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What is a Chunche?
A Chunche is a building designed to dry grapes into raisins. It's a traditional structure used by the Uyghur people. These buildings have a dark inside, and their walls are full of many holes. These holes let the wind blow through, which helps dry the grapes using a process called evaporation. Because they need a lot of wind, Chunches are usually built in high, windy places.
Why are Chunches so Special?
Visitors to Turpan have been interested in these buildings for a long time. A Russian traveler named Grigory Grum-Grshimailo visited Turpan in the 1800s. He wrote that Turpan's raisins were "the best in the world." He also mentioned that they were dried in "drying houses of a completely peculiar type," referring to the Chunches.
How Grapes Become Raisins in a Chunche
In Turpan, most raisins are made from white grapes that don't have seeds. The drying process inside a Chunche takes about 40 days. Grapes dried in the shade of a Chunche usually look green or yellow. This is because they are not exposed to direct sunlight. Grapes dried directly under the sun, however, usually turn dark.
Some people who make raisins even buy grapes from other places, like Hami. They bring these grapes to Turpan to dry them in the local Chunches. This is because many believe that the Chunche drying method makes better raisins.
Turpan's Raisin Production
Turpan is a very important place for raisin production. For example, in 2009 and 2010, China was expected to produce 155,000 metric tons of raisins. This made China the largest raisin producer in the world! About 75% of all those raisins came from Turpan.
