Colored by steeped natural herbaceous plants such as day lily and maple leaf, the five-color rice, represents a good harvest of the year.

Nutritional and delicious, Five Color Glutinous Rice is an auspicious food symbolizing good harvest in the eye of Zhuang people. Herbaceous plants such as lily and maple leaf are minced to dye them into black, grey, and yellow, purple and white, hence its name. 

It prevails widely among Zhuang and Miao people. Any festival such as Tomb Sweeping Festival, Sanyuesan (Gexu Festival) and Si Yue Ba, Dragon Boat Festival and Buffalo King Festival won’t be complete without it. It is used to pay homage to ancestor and entertain guests. Miao people centered on Kaili, Guizhou use it during Sisters’ Meal Festival to give hint to their sweethearts.

The colorful steamed glutinous rice has been a patent of Buyi people in Luoping, east of Yunnan. The rice is dyed into red, yellow, blue, orange, and black after being soaking in the vegetable dyes made from some healthy herbs. It is made from glutinous rice and natural color agents (red, yellow, purple orange and black etc) extracted from leaves, flowers, grass and roots etc. Enjoying a history of as long as 800 years, the Colored Rice has become a representative delicacy with characteristics of the Buyi People. As a traditional snack of Buyi people, it also symbolizes the good luck and a bumper grain harvest.

How to make different colors:
Black: People pick up maple leaves and barks of tender stem, soaking them in some water after mashing up. One day later, filter the leaves. The black dye is successfully made.

Yellow: Boil the hemerocallis miner in the hot water or soak the smashed gardeniajasminoides ellis, then the water is yellow.

Red: boil the red fragrant thoroughwort in hot water, then the water can be dyed into red.

Soak the rice in different colors for about one day, then the colorful glutinous rice can be made.