Why wealthy Chinese love Italy’s white truffles: prestige, unpredictability and their powerful earthy flavour
- Wealthy Chinese outbid their rivals for the largest and finest white truffles from Piedmont most years, spending thousands of dollars per ounce
- Chinese visitors to Piedmont fall in love with the beauty of the area, full of gently rolling green hills and picturesque medieval hamlets
Elite Chinese chefs and gourmands can’t get enough of a famous fungus that sells for sky-high prices.
Averaging €300 for 100 grams (about US$1,350 per pound) – but with the largest specimens selling for substantially more – highly sought-after white truffles from Italy’s northern Piedmont region are commonly called “white gold”.
The Chinese love affair with these musky-tasting truffles has given rise to a niche industry of cooks, businessmen and millionaires from Shanghai to Singapore. They have become the main buyers of the expensive delicacy and the major protagonists in the annual truffle drama – the yearly auction in the Piedmont town of Alba.
“Each year in Alba we stage the white truffle global auction, and for the past 15 years it has been held simultaneously through streaming in Hong Kong, which boasts a permanent seat,” says Marco Scuderi, vice-president of the International Alba White Truffle Fair. “Also, Singapore and Tokyo have connected to the internet auction in recent years, but as usual the last edition [auction] was won by Hong Kong. The Chinese are our biggest, most sophisticated clientele.”
Truffles are big business. Alba’s season for the delicacies, running from September to early December, draws half a million tourists to the region, who spend more than US$28 million a year.