Lai Tangyuan

Lai Tangyuan is said to have begun in the late Qing when a vendor surnamed Lai sold glutinous rice balls from a shoulder pole in Chengdu's streets; careful ingredients and balls that never split in the pot earned a name, and the brand later settled into a fixed shop as the city's representative tangyuan house.

Famed for thin skins and generous fillings that stay chewy yet not sticky, hold together while boiling, and leave the broth clear, with fillings from black sesame to candied tangerine and rose, it has long been named with Long Chaoshou and Zhong dumplings and is a recognized China Time-Honored Brand.

Its tangyuan use fine glutinous rice ground wet into a paste, drained, then wrapped around assorted sweet fillings and rolled smooth and round, so that long boiling leaves the skins whole and the water clear, eaten with a dip of sugared sesame paste, a display of Chengdu's delicate dessert handcraft.

As a China Time-Honored Brand, Lai Tangyuan carries on the traditional wet-ground tangyuan craft of Chengdu and ranks among the city's most representative sweet-snack brands.