Guest Post: Chinese Candy Grab Bag – Beijing Su

This week and into next, I’m turning the reviewing over to my friend Neil. He’s from upstate New York but is currently living in the Netherlands. Ironically enough, his guest posts are about Chinese candy.

A labmate went home to China to celebrate the New Year and brought back a lot of candy to share. I asked her to select some for me. Here were my impressions.

Beijingsu comes like a little hard satiny pillow. It reminds me of candies I saw as a kid but haven’t thought of in years, the sort your grandmother had, but my mother did sometimes.

It smells of sesame. Like the White Rabbit, I had a hard time judging what its flavor would be like based solely on its pearly-grey-with-unevenly-spaced-brown-stripes appearance.

A quick bite revealed two important facts. The outer appearance was just that, covering an interior of brown grainy filling. Also, the shell shattered quickly, giving way to the crumbly, meringue-like filling.

The sesame flavor was not as present as hoped for, instead being more subtle. I happily finished chomping and wondered how many I could eat in one sitting.

Aspects of it reminded me of my take on cotton candy, which leaves me pleased but somehow not sufficiently sated. OM.