Season's Eatings

A difficult harvest and soaring prices couldn't stop Italian chef Umberto Bombana from bringing his famous white truffles back to Beijing. Li Yingxue reports.

A summer of heat waves and droughts in Alba, Italy, has wrought havoc with this season's harvest of white truffles in the region, making them more difficult to gather in early winter.

As one of the most popular and priciest ingredients in the world, white truffles need both the rain and cold to thrive, and are only available during a very short season - and this year's unfavorable climate conditions have not only hit the harvest but forced prices up sharply.