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What is plum candy?
Preserved plums, a delightful processed fruit product, are made from the pits of plums, apricots, peaches, and similar fruits. This delicacy undergoes a meticulous process involving rehydration, pickling, rinsing, and drying. The final product features a dry, wrinkled surface with a slight salty frost, boasting hues of yellow-brown or light reddish-brown. It masterfully blends sweet, sour, salty, and aromatic flavors, leaving a lasting aftertaste. Renowned for its delicate texture and rich flavor, preserved plums are a celebrated variety of preserved fruit.
You may be looking for another type of candy: Chinese Prune Candy.
For over two millennia, the Chinese have cultivated, consumed, and admired plums, a tradition dating back to ancient times. Initially, due to the plum's unsuitability for raw consumption and its difficulty in preservation, ancient people preserved plums using salt, creating what was known in the Shang and Zhou dynasties as "salted plums," primarily used as a seasoning. However, as time progressed into the Tang and Song periods, people began to prefer making preserved plums as a sweet delicacy, with the most famous of these being "talking plums."
The name "talking plums" is believed to have come from the fact that these plums, being primarily sour with a sweet fragrance, could stimulate saliva production and thereby improve speech clarity for those with hoarse voices, making conversation easier. There's also a theory that "talking plum" is a miswriting of "dark plum." Depending on the production technique, talking plums can be categorized into varieties such as licorice-flavored, low sugar, creamy, brown sugar, ice, and salted. Based on the raw materials, they can be divided into apricot plums, plum meat plums, and plum plums. This delicacy has inspired a range of products, including plum candies, plum teas, effervescent plum tablets, and dishes like plum pork ribs and plum chicken.
Talking plums are renowned for their health and wellness benefits, capable of quenching thirst, alleviating heat, and aiding digestion, making them an excellent snack for travelers. The primary ingredient, yellow plum, is rich in various organic acids, vitamins, and minerals. While the basic processing methods for talking plums remain similar across regions, variations in ingredients result in slightly different flavors. With advancements in technology, the production process for talking plums has increasingly embraced low temperature, low salt, and low sugar methods, reducing nutritional loss and water use. This not only makes the production more environmentally friendly and healthier but also significantly enhances production efficiency and product benefits.
The History of plum candy in China
The cultivation, consumption, and appreciation of plums have been integral to Chinese culture for two to three thousand years. Originating in China, where they are most widely grown, the English language does not have a distinct term for the plum tree; the word "plum" is used to refer to both plums and other similar fruits. To differentiate, "plum blossom" is used for the flowers, while the fruit is called "sourplum," reflecting its tartness compared to other plum varieties.
Plums are not typically eaten raw due to their sourness and difficulty in preservation. In ancient times, their tartness was utilized as a seasoning. To prevent spoilage, green plums were preserved in salt, a method dating back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties. This preserved plum, known as "salted plum," could also be considered a type of candied fruit. The phrase "salted plum" is mentioned in ancient texts as a metaphor for harmony in diversity. The idiom "quenching thirst with plums" originates from a historical anecdote about Cao Cao, who motivated his parched soldiers by promising them plums ahead, thereby stimulating their salivation with the mere thought of their sourness. This story has led to plums being nicknamed "The Thirst-Quenching General" and "Cao's Plum," and because of their use as a seasoning, they're also referred to as "The Prime Minister of Harmony."
Fan Chengda, in his Song Dynasty "Plum Manual," mentions several superior varieties of plum trees, primarily ornamental, except for one known as the "Xiao Mei," prized for its small, crisp, juicy, and pit-free fruit. This variety is not suited for drying or cooking due to its high moisture content but is ideal for fresh consumption. Similarly, there's a pear variety known as "Xiao Pear," sharing the characteristic of being juicy and easily digestible. In Suzhou, Dongting Mountain is famous for its edible plums, which, despite their tartness, are enjoyed fresh by the locals who preserve them in slightly salted sugar water for a sweet, sour, and slightly salty flavor. The "Bencao Gangmu" describes the process of making "Wu Mei" (dried plums) by smoking green plums until black or steaming them with rice husk ash for moisture retention without rotting.
Plum candies, especially "Hua Mei," are renowned for their unique preparation process, involving drying, salting, and seasoning with sugar and spices before baking. The name "Hua Mei" (literally "talking plum") comes from the belief that its sourness, followed by sweetness, stimulates saliva production, aiding those with hoarse voices, making it easier to speak. There's also a linguistic play between "hua" (to speak) and "wu" (black), reflecting the process of turning green plums into "Wu Mei." Folk tales suggest storytellers used these plums to moisten their mouths during long sessions, linking the practice to the storytelling tradition, hence the name "talking plum."
Famous plum candy brand
HuaWeiHeng
Huaweiheng, a brand in China's preserved fruit industry. Its full name is: Hangzhou Huaweiheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Founded in 1992, it is a traditional manufacturing enterprise. The company is a production enterprise that integrates product development, production, and sales into a unified, branded enterprise.
The company is located in Xingqiao Economic Development Zone, Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, with convenient transportation. It is close to National Highway 320, south to Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo Expressway, Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway and Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, and north to Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which can reach Suzhou, Wuxi, and Tai Lake. The company has three production bases, covering an area of more than 25,000 square meters, providing a 100% daylight environment during the production and processing of preserved fruit. The company has more than 2,000 employees, of which more than 20% are middle and senior research and development technicians and managers.
Jiabao
Jiabao brand was established in 1988, a well-known domestic leisure food brand, famous for its nine-made dried tangerine peel, mainly engaged in the production and sales of candied food such as candied fruit / preserved fruit / fruit cake / candied fruit / fruit dan, etc. It is a representative brand of the domestic candied fruit industry.
Guangdong Jiabao Group Co., Ltd. is a leading industry in Guangdong Province, mainly engaged in the deep processing of agricultural fruits and vegetables such as preserved fruit, pickles, and beverage products. It is a modern comprehensive private enterprise integrating food research and development, packaging, and healthy food. In 1994, Chaozhou Jiabao Color Printing Packaging Co., Ltd. was established, and in 2013, Guangzhou Tianheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was established.
The Jiabao preserved fruit products currently produced by the Bao Group cover six major categories of preserved fruits, including talkative, preserved fruits, candied fruits, fruit cakes, preserved fruits, and fruit dan, with more than sixty different products. From categories to varieties and production, it has become a representative of the domestic preserved fruit industry.
Liuliumei
The parent company of Liuliumei, Liuliu Fruits, was founded in 2005. It is a company that covers the entire industry chain of plum snacks, focusing on the research and development of green plum snacks. It focuses on the green plum category, including original flavored green plums/snow plums/black plums/talk plums/clear plums/green tea flavored green plums and more than ten other flavors. The products sell well both domestically and abroad, and are committed to promoting the diversified development of the green plum characteristic industry, making green plum food mainstream.
The Liu Liu Orchard Group Co., Ltd. is a modern group enterprise dedicated to the research, cultivation, processing, and marketing of green plums. It is a leading enterprise in the whole plum industry chain in China. The group's headquarters is located in Wuhu, Anhui, and it has three major production and manufacturing bases in Anhui, Fujian, and Guangxi. Liu Liu Orchard Group is a national key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization and has been honored as one of China's top 100 light industry enterprises and a national green factory.
The group has launched the "531 Project" for the Chinese plum industry, planning to promote green plum planting in 1,000 towns across the country in five years, benefiting 1 million farming households. At present, Liuliu Orchard has established three major green plum production and processing bases in Anhui, Fujian, and Guangxi, driving the development of green plum planting in areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Yunnan, Guangxi, and Sichuan.