Great green mountain

By Wang Kaihao (China Daily)

Updated: 2013-10-04

Our meat was prepared simply, boiled and flavored only with salt. Many people do not like mutton for its pungency, but we did not detect any such flavours in the lamb produced on the farm. The explanation was just outside the door of our dining yurt.

Here, the sheep clambered up and down the hilly slopes, drinking spring water and eating an organic fodder specially produced by Li and Wei. It includes caragana, sea buckthorn berries and Mongolian vetch - all herbs that grow abundantly in the area.

Li graduated from Inner Mongolia Normal University as an English major in the 1970s, but he chose to become a hermit in the mountains, spending years researching fodder and livestock.

Twenty-five years later, he emerged, started his company and now proudly claims that he supplies Beijing's best restaurants with the tastiest organic lamb.

Most of the local villagers have moved out of the mountain to look for work in the cities and we saw many abandoned villages in the valley.

For Li, the mountains offer an opportunity to expand his Eden of organic food. He grows corn, hulless oats, buckwheat, and other crops like potatoes here.

For the couple, eating organic is an everyday necessity.

"I'm afraid my stomach is already allergic to the food outside," Wei laughs. "I am already spoiled by the fresh food we grow."

On our way back to Hohhot, we met up with several groups who had got lost looking for Xiaojinggou - so maybe it really is a lost paradise.

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