Tasting Adventure: Try These Top Five Mooncake Flavors
Mooncake eating time is officially here, there're so many options it's hard to narrow down what you should try. We received a mooncake box from the Sheraton Dongcheng and it had numerous flavors both traditional and a gourmet. We tried all flavors of course but my favorite was the coffee, which was really good but this was gourmet as coffee isn't a traditional filling. Most mooncakes won't have an English name written for easier differentiation therefore you have to rely on a Chinese friend to help, learned Chinese and can easily tell, or taste to know what you're eating. It's good to try at least one of these traditional flavors before the gourmet ones to get your favorite.
Lotus Seed Paste
This is one of the most traditional flavors out there, the lotus seed paste. The dense paste will leave you dry so washing it down will be necessary but it's very filling as only one will be enough. This isn't for everybody.
Sweet Bean Paste
To be totally honest the whole bean paste tastes doesn't bode well for me. I first tasted in a pastry then a moon cake and didn't even want to try the ice creams. Of course there are various pastes such as the mung bean, red bean, and black bean. Red bean is a popular choice and might be worth a try to see if you like it or not.
Five Kernels
Nuts and seeds such as walnuts, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, peanuts, sesame seeds, and almonds are another common filling that depends on the regional preference. For Beijing, sweet nuts and seeds are used such as almonds and watermelon.
Egg Yolk
This is one of the popular options that's readily available as the symbolism of the moon is through the salted egg yolk in the middle.
Green Tea
The healthier option is for cheaters like me who want to be in denial that the candy coated mooncakes are okay to have. The taste is definitely acquired and might have a tea aftertaste left depending on the way it was made.
This post originally appeared on our sister site beijingkids.
Photo: Wikimedia
