Black Sugar Pearl Flavored Tang Yuan

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, which is my favorite Chinese holiday. Okay, well, not actually, but more specifically the festive food (Tang Yuan) is my favorite Chinese festival food. Is that shallow? Probably, but food is still an important part of culture, right? In all seriousness though, every part of culture should be valued in some form.

For anyone that doesn’t know, tang yuan are basically balls made from glutinous sticky rice that are cooked in boiling water. The result is a chewy and sweet dessert that is totally up my alley. There’s a variety of fillings that exist, but personally, my favorite is plain.

I think my parents bought this (essentially) boba flavored one from 99 Ranch. I’m not very surprised this exists, since boba is already chewy, and tang yuan comes in a ton of flavors already, so merging the two in concept doesn’t sound that hard. The package mentioned “black sugar flavored”, but the translated back nutrition value said “black sugar milk tea flavored”, so we shall see what it actually tastes like.

What a pleasant surprise! So, no wonder this tang yuan is so big, because it’s stuffed with a bunch of stuff. Namely, a white, creamy, milky substance(?) and actual boba! The brown outside doesn’t taste like much, but I guess if it tasted sugary that would mean it’s worse for your health…Anyway, the cream thing in the middle is very interesting, and adds a nice texture and flavor. Supposedly the packaging says “milk essence”, but my mom said it tasted like coconut milk. I don’t like coconut, but I still liked it. The actual boba on the inside was so soft and chewy and sweet and pretty good quality, on par with a good boba shop’s boba.