"The Shanxi people (would) rather you lost their furniture, lost their car. They will never give up their vinegar," Martin Yan, a Chinese-American celebrity chef, says in a video showing him visiting a restaurant kitchen in Shanxi several years ago.

Mature vinegar - made largely from sorghum, barley and peas - is more full-bodied and well rounded than regular distilled vinegar, Yan says in his cookbook Martin Yan's China. This vinegar is comparable, he says, "to the most expensive balsamic vinegar from Italy".

Besides being used as a dipping sauce for dumplings or additional flavoring for soups, mature vinegar is also used in cooking dishes such as sweet and sour spare ribs, and pork and chestnuts braised in brown sauce, says Song Xin, executive sous chef at the Fairmont Beijing Hotel.

Shanxi's vinegar production, which dates back 3,000 years, is centered in Taiyuan's Qingxu county. At the local Baoyuan Mature Vinegar Workshop, established in 1428, visitors can see thousands of vinegar vats laid out in rows under the sun, where they're being aged then bottled for domestic and international distribution.

The people of Shanxi also use mature vinegar to produce a health tonic, which they swear helps keep the doctor away. Although foreign tourists may feel a bit odd drinking vinegar from a vial with a straw, the sweet-sour taste might keep them going back for more.

If you think vinegar is just a sour liquid used to prepare meals, think again.