Nanchang's clay-jar soup and banfen: the breakfast a charcoal vat keeps warm

The vat stands waist-high and is glazed dark brown. When the lid comes off, the shop window fogs. Inside, stacked in tiers like bottles in a cellar, sit dozens of small lidded clay jars. Each one holds a single portion of soup that has been cooking over low heat for hours. In Nanchang (南昌), capital of Jiangxi (江西) province, a great many mornings start this way: one jar of soup, one bowl of dressed rice noodles, and a low plastic stool by the door.

A fire at the bottom of the vat

The method is called weitang (煨汤), and wei is the word that matters. It means cooking slowly in banked, gentle heat rather than at a rolling boil. The large vat, the wagang (瓦缸), traditionally has a charcoal fire at its base, though newer shops may use gas or an electric element. The small jars, waguan (瓦罐), are filled with raw ingredients and water, covered, and set onto racks in layers so the heat reaches them from below and from the sides. Once the lids are on, nothing gets stirred.

The broth comes out clear rather than milky, with a thin ring of gold fat on the surface. Each jar is sealed, so the pork jar doesn't taste of the pigeon jar beside it. Staff fish the jars out with a wire hook or long tongs and set them on a saucer, still too hot to hold.

Reading the soup board

The menu is painted or printed on a board above the vat, and it's shorter than it first looks. Regulars order roubing tang (肉饼汤) without looking up. It's minced pork pressed into a patty at the bottom of the jar, and it cooks into something between a meatball and a terrine. Roubing dan tang (肉饼蛋汤) adds an egg cracked over the patty, which the slow heat sets firm. Paigu tang (排骨汤), pork rib, comes next, often with lotus root (莲藕, lian'ou) in the cooler months.

Further down the board, the prices climb. Wuji tang (乌鸡汤), made with black-skinned silkie chicken, and gezi tang (鸽子汤), pigeon, count as restorative food rather than everyday food. They may come with goji berries (枸杞, gouqi), red dates (红枣, hongzao) or slices of tianma (天麻), a dried tuber used in tonic cooking. If you just point at the vat, you'll most likely get pork patty, because that's what most shops make the most of.

Banfen, the other half of the order

Soup alone isn't quite breakfast here. It comes with banfen (拌粉), mixed rice noodles: thick, round, slightly springy strands blanched for a few seconds in a wire basket and tipped into a bowl. The cook adds a ladle of soy-based sauce, a spoon of oil, chopped spring onion and something crunchy, such as fried peanuts, preserved radish (萝卜干, luobogan) or pickled long beans. Chili oil goes on last unless you stop it.

Listen for jia la ma (加辣吗), which asks whether you want chili. Bu yao la (不要辣) means none and shao la (少辣) means a little. The sauce pools at the bottom of the bowl, so keep tossing with your chopsticks until every strand is dark and glossy. Regulars alternate a mouthful of noodles with a spoon of broth. The saltiness of one and the clean warmth of the other are meant to be eaten together, not one after the other.

一份拌粉，一罐肉饼汤。

Yi fen banfen, yi guan roubing tang: one portion of noodles, one jar of pork-patty soup. That's the whole order. Said once at the counter, it usually gets you fed in under a minute.

Where the vats stand

Jar-soup shops aren't gathered on one tourist strip. They're scattered through residential blocks, beside wet markets and along the older streets of the central districts. The easiest way to find one is to look for the vat itself, usually parked in the doorway so its steam does the advertising. Red characters on the sign reading 瓦罐汤 (waguan tang) confirm it.

The restored streets around Shengjin Pagoda (绳金塔, Shengjin Ta) have a dense run of snack shops. So does the rebuilt Wanshou Palace (万寿宫, Wanshougong) quarter, closer to the Gan River (赣江, Gan Jiang), though both lean toward visitors later in the day. For a neighbourhood breakfast, walk a block or two off the main roads around Bayi Square (八一广场, Bayi Guangchang) and follow the people in work clothes. The shops are narrow, with the vat at the front, a noodle station beside it and a few low tables behind. A meal takes about ten minutes. You may hear the local word qia (恰) used for 'eat' instead of Mandarin chi, and the counter staff will switch to Mandarin for you.

The lake on the dinner table

Nanchang sits at the southern edge of the Poyang Lake (鄱阳湖, Poyang Hu) basin, and you can taste it at later meals. In spring, locals push luhao chao larou (藜蒿炒腊肉) on visitors: crisp, slightly herbal stems of a lakeshore artemisia stir-fried with smoky cured pork. Out of season it may be made with farmed stems, or it may disappear from the menu.

Jiangxi cooking relies on fresh chili and fermented black beans rather than Sichuan's numbing peppercorn. Larger restaurants often keep a soup vat by the entrance, so a jar of rib soup can open dinner. At night the soup is one course. In the morning it's the whole meal.

Getting there, and the one thing not to touch

Most visitors arrive by high-speed rail at Nanchang West Station (南昌西站, Nanchang Xizhan), across the Gan River in the newer Honggutan (红谷滩) district. The older Nanchang Station (南昌站) is closer to the traditional centre. The metro runs to Bayi Square, where Lines 1 and 2 meet; check current routes and transfers on the operator's app or at a station service desk. Go early. The jar-soup trade is busiest first thing, and the most popular jars can sell out by late morning, though many shops stay open into lunch. Hours differ from shop to shop and are rarely posted in English.

Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons. Summer is long, humid and fiercely hot, and spring brings the lake greens. Prices are modest and written on the board for each soup, with the tonic jars costing more than the pork ones, so check before you order. Many shops display a QR code for WeChat Pay or Alipay, and you can usually link a foreign card to either app before you travel. Carry a little cash for the smallest places anyway.

The mistake to avoid is picking up the jar. It comes out of the vat far hotter than its calm surface suggests, and the clay stays hot for a long time. Leave it on the saucer, lift the lid with a napkin, and drink from the spoon.