Zeng Qi is smiling these days, who came to Taicang 10 years ago to start a rice wine business in the ancient city. [Photo/taicangdaily.com]

Dozens of tourists from Shanghai keep flocking to a store in Liuhe -- an ancient town of Taicang, Suzhou, in Jiangsu province – known for its rice wine and, according to those in the know, apparently getting ever popular.

"Our store has more customers at weekends than on weekdays," said Zeng Qi, the Post-90s owner of the rice wine store.

The Post-90s generation is the generation in China, that was born between 1990 and 1999. The term especially applies to those in the urban areas.

"In the previous years when the production is quite small, our rice wine often fell short of demand," he said.

Zeng, who was born in Hubei province and has gotten very, very good at making rice wine, came to Liuhe 10 years ago to embark on the rice wine business.

In Zeng's eyes, Liuhe has a profound history with its rice wine.

Tradition has it that before Zhenghe -- a Chinese explorer and diplomat in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) -- set sail for the western sea area from Taicang, he and his staff quaffed Liuhe's rice wine and lauded its mellow taste.

The rice wine made in the ancient way is known to have a short shelf life and quite easily turns sour at room temperature, so how to prolong the shelf life was the biggest problem faced by Zeng.

After referring to various documents and cooperating with universities, Zeng cracked it -- by improving the traditional processing equipment and adding a sterilization process to make their rice wine capable of lasting for two years below 15 degrees Celsius.

In addition to plain rice wine, Zeng has also launched rose rice wine, osmanthus rice wine and mulberry rice wine.

In only a few years, Zeng's rice wine store has gained a name in surrounding cities and he has also opened two other stores in places in Suzhou and now markets his products online.

Last year, the sales revenue for rice wine in the Liuhe store alone topped 1 million yuan ($145,000) and is expected to increase by 200,000 yuan each year.