Volunteers from the Chongqing hotpot industry in Southwest China have sent about 4,000 boxes of instant hotpot to medical teams in Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, to help ease their homesickness.

On the front lines against the coronavirus, known as COVID-19, for more than a month, many medical workers from Chongqing have been craving the spicy hotpot, a local specialty with beef tallow, large quantities of chilis and Sichuan peppers.

The municipality has dispatched more than 1,600 doctors and nurses to the epicenter of the outbreak so far.

The Chongqing branch of the Communist Youth League of China first noticed an online comment from a Chongqing medical worker in Hubei lamenting the lack of hotpot and noted that online orders of instant hotpot couldn't be delivered to Hubei because of the lockdown.

The league in Chongqing soon mobilized volunteers from the local hotpot association, including the owners of Leishen Hotpot, Chaotianmen Hotpot, Two Hotpot and a hotpot base soup company called Mu Ge, to provide free instant hotpot boxes and soup base soup to the workers in Hubei.

They mailed the instant hotpot boxes via China Post EMS service.

The volunteers also sent free hotpot to the families of the Chongqing medical workers.

Boasting both the best and largest number of hotpot restaurants in the country, Chongqing was named China's "hotpot city" by the China Cuisine Association in 2007.