Xingping Pine-Flower Candy

Xingping pine-flower candy is a traditional handmade sweet of Yangshuo's old town of Xingping, made from glutinous rice, maltose, peanut and sesame and set into golden pieces the colour of pine blossoms, crisp and fragrant, melting on the tongue, a teatime treat and New Year sweet passed down through the town's generations.

The craft of pine-flower candy has been handed down in the old town of Xingping on the Li River, growing up alongside its thousand-year fishing and trading life; beside cormorant fishing it is another local handcraft brought under Yangshuo county-level heritage care and often found aboard the Li River cruise boats.

Cut into small pieces and taken with tea, crisp and not sticking to the teeth, it serves as a teatime snack in the old-town teahouses and aboard the Li River boats, and is often carried home as a gift, just right for receiving guests at the New Year.

Its golden pine-blossom colour, its crisp crumbly texture that melts away, and the century-old craft bound up with the fishing and trading life of Xingping are the marks of pine-flower candy.