Tang Yuan Market in Ningbo
February 3, 2009Tang Yuan Market in Ningbo
Hong Kong – January 30 – IJS-Global -Tang Yuan is indispensable to the New Year’s dinner in my hometown Ningbo. Tang Yuan originated in the Song Dynasty, which is one of the most famous dessert in Ningbo. The Ningbo Tang Yuan is made of white glutinous rice flour for the skin, with lard, sugar, black sesame paste powder inside. It is also called sweet dumplings or rice ball. A long time ago, the Ningbo families had the tradition to sit together having TangYuan on Spring Festival morning. But now Tangyuan is always served as dessert after New Year’s dinner.
How is the Tang Yuan market this year? I went to the largest supermarket chain in our town, Vangurd. At the frozen food counters, Ms. Hu Limin, a sales staff told me that sales of this year is as good as before during the Spring Festival, if not better. “In fact, many merchants promot Tang Yuan at low price to stimulate the consumers to buy.” She said. In the counters she is responsible for, there would be three to four times one day for replenishment. “We also have a number of promotional activities, such as offering to buy more. Send one bag of Tang Yuan if you buy more than five bags. Still, there are dumplings with Tang Yuan selling together. They sell very well.”
In another supermarket RT-MART, which only has opened for a month here, people are crowded in front of the frozen food counters.I found many Tang Yuan merchants offering new taste this year,such as pineapple filling, chocolate filling. They even launched healty taste to attract more customers, such as xylitol low sugar filling.
Traditional Tang Yuan are filled with red bean paste, sesame, peanut. Ms.Zhang Ying, a local customer is selecting Tang Yuan.She said she prefered a new kind of Tang Yuan, which is half size of the traditional ones. “ My parents say this kind of Tang Yuan is easier for them to chew and swallow.It is small but with enough stuffing.” She said.
Mr. Fan Guoqiang, who is in charge of the frozen food counters said he is optimistic about the Tang Yuan sales this winter. “ Although the financial crisis lat year was serious, but you know Chinese New Year is always the most important for the Chinese family. Whether the economic situation is tough or good, people have to relax in the festival. And our traditions can not be ignored.”
