Wacky Snacks: Sanh Yuan Chien Cha Slice - Preserved Fruit

Edwin Goei

Name: Sanh Yuan Chien Cha Slice - Preserved Fruit

Origin: Taiwan

Found at: 99 Ranch, Irvine

Cost: $1.99

Ingredients:

Dried Fruit, Sugar, Salt, Licorice

Why I Bought It:

In a word: ambiguity. What are these powdery-looking, quarter-sized, hockey-puck-hard tablets? Yes, it does say it is "Preserved Fruit" on the front. But which fruit? The picture on the packaging has apples, peaches, oranges, bananas, pineapples and grapes both red and green. Yet looking at the back side ingredient list provokes more questions. It simply says "Ingredients: Dried Fruit, Sugar, Salt, Licorice."

Which dried fruit!? Tell us! Inquiring minds want to know!

Even more circular logic exists in the packaging blurb, which says this:

"SY Food has been a specialized manufacturer of delicious salted and preserved fruits since 1988 from Taiwan.

Our products have been sold to the United states, Japan, and many other countries. The raw material is strictly selected from fresh fruits. All products are manufactured by using the modernized technology with qualified ingredients to make superior dried preserved fruits."

Well, that didn't help.  Also, looking back at the ingredients I notice that it is listed as "Main Ingredients", which leaves a lot to the imagination as to what are the unlisted secondary ones.

So could this be some sort of Frankenfruit? A product of the odds and ends of what's pictured?

Anyone reading this with any idea, please chime in.

Tasting Notes:

After tasting one, it is still hard to pin down what I'm eating. The predominant flavor is the salt, the licorice, and the faint whiff of a Chinese herb store. Hiding beneath it and its powdery, sandy texture, there's a layer of...well, fruitiness, a citrusy, peach-y, pineapple-y, and the indiscriminate tartness of all those combined. I'm more confused now as to what I ate than before.