蛇麼都好: Happy Year of the Snake
plus hakka kumquat sauce, dried kumquat slices, and glorious red envelopes
This is Yun Hai Taiwan Stories, a newsletter about Taiwanese food and culture by Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉, founder of Yun Hai. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, sign up here.
Happy Lunar New Year!
Wood Snake energy feels extra big this year, predicted to be a force of growth, rebalance, and transformation. I think passion and brightness will carry through, too. Change is in the air; the path is long and winding. It’s simultaneously known and unknown. I’m tied in knots.
We’ve had a funny January. Our ocean shipments from Taiwan have been delayed several times, and we received our Lunar New Year products and restocks only yesterday. In the meantime, we’ve never been more out of stock. We’re mostly back in business now, so go get those Tatungs before the rest of the world does. During the downtime, I’ve been setting up a new creative office, where we plan to refocus our product design and storytelling energies for a big, bright, buoyant year.
Kumquat is THE fruit of Lunar New Year, with its blingy aura and auspicious symbolism. So this week, I’m excited to share the launch of a preserved kumquat collection from Geli in Chiayi county, including a Hakka-style citrus dipping sauce and dried kumquat slices (lightly candied). I had these at my Lunar New Year table and they were so good, I have them no longer. We used to carry these products at our brick-and-mortar, where they were crowd favorites. After a blip in the supply chain, they’re back and online now, too! Eat your heart out, GP.
And finally, don’t miss our other New Year specials. We’ve got a pineapple-themed Lunar New Year bundle and O.OO red envelopes. This Thursday through Sunday (1/30-2/2), we’ll be selling pineapple cakes at the brick and mortar (in collaboration with Win Son Bakery). Finally, we’ll be popping up at Cha Cha Festival, a Lunar New Year tea party, this weekend in Manhattan, with a Taiwanese snack cart and a soft launch from Taiwanese chef Jessie Yuchen. Exhale.
I remember my first kumquat (don’t we all?). It was carried home with many others in a t-shirt, worn by my mother, who lifted the hem to form a makeshift basket. She had seen them on a tree at our neighbor’s house, who offered them to her. Kumquats are found almost everywhere in Taiwan, but she hadn’t encountered them in her years living in the States. Her excitement was intoxicating, like Christmas came to the Cheng-Smith family a second time. Except it was Lunar New Year.
I remember how it tasted, too. It was warm from the sun, shaped like a three-dimensional letter O, and heavier than it looked. It had only the slightest give when I squeezed it. My mom told me to eat it whole, which I couldn’t believe would actually work. I bit it in half instead, and the oils and juices from the peel plumed and created a heady sensation. It was sour and bitter and sweet. I thought that I might like them more later, when I was an adult.
The Chinese name for kumquat, jin ji金桔, sounds phonetically like “golden fortune,” and because the harvest is timed to the new year, they are a particularly lucky symbol during the holiday. I find it poetic, and a bit poignant, that something meant to represent wealth and fortune might also taste a bitter, bringing to mind the idiom chi ku 吃苦 (eating bitterness), which refers to the endurance of hardship without complaint.
Kumquat trees grow particularly well in the tropical and subtropical climates of Taiwan, and winter harvests are flush. To make the most of this golden gift, the people of Taiwan have developed many culinary processes to make kumquats more palatable: turning them into a syrup for fruit teas, candying them in myriad ways, brining them, or pureeing preserved fruits into a savory citrus dipping sauce. All of these are special and delicious, and all of them maintain that sophisticated bitter edge, reminding us that hard is the other side of easy.
As prophesied, I do like them now. So much so that we’re importing them, and not in a folded up t-shirt, either. To mark the Year of the Snake, we're introducing a collection of preserved kumquat products from Geli, a family-owned manufacturer that has specialized in cultivating and processing this citrus for four generations.
Geli Kumquat 吉利金桔
Located in the township of Minxiong in Chiayi County, the family-owned manufacturer Geli 吉利 has been cultivating and processing kumquats for over 60 years, producing sauces, vinegars, and preserved fruit.
Founder Tsai Hai-Piao's discovery of kumquat was accidental—a snack consumed at a friend's place—and it inspired him to start farming kumquats in Minxiong's favorable climate, while teaching other farmers how to successfully build their orchards.
Since then, the company has dedicated itself to making a name for Minxiong through its kumquats, opening a tourist farm and educational workshops in addition to their orchard and processing plant. The company is now led by Peter, Tsai's great-grandson, who has updated the branding and distributed Minxiong's kumquats to a wider audience.
Look for an illustration of his great grandfather on the packaging:
What Makes a Good Preserved Kumquat?
The key to great kumquat preserves is excellent fruit and meticulous processing. Everything from how the fruit is picked (by hand) to its selection (by size) impacts the final result.
The most important part of processing kumquats is to remove the most sour flavors and bitter aromatics, so the sweetness of the fruit shines through. To do this, the kumquats are deseeded, perforated, and then pickled in salt. These are then rinsed of all salinity, and moved onto the next part of their process, whatever it may be (candied, macerated into a syrup, pureed into a sauce, you name it).
Geli shares this process on their packaging:
Geli makes many, many kinds of kumquat products, from kumquat juice powder to kumquat pastries. We’re starting with two of the most traditional items: Hakka-style Kumquat Sauce and Dried Shredded Kumquat, both preservative and additive free.
Hakka-Style Kumquat Sauce 吉利金桔沾醬
This style of kumquat sauce is a specialty of Taiwan’s Hakka communities, produced from the abundant harvests of sour kumquat fruit in the winter months. Made by carefully preserving both pulp and peel, then blending them with chili and rice wine, it’s just tangy enough to bring that puckering feeling to the cheeks. There’s a foundational complexity from the preserved citrus akin to the sophistication of a brined lemon.
Think of it as a Taiwanese chutney with a tangy-savory flavor that will complement tender poached chicken, mild steamed tofu, or vibrant, crunchy greens. More than a sauce, it’s a condiment that’s representative of Taiwan’s rich foodways, informed by the island’s unique mix of culture and agriculture.
Our friends Tri.Club, who staged a Taiwanese sandwich pop up at our brick-and-mortar shop, made a golden berry shrimp salad with this sauce and heaped it between two thick slices of milk bread. So, you could do that too.
This sauce something all its own, with a big flavor falling somewhere between chili lime mango and sunshine.
Geli Dried Kumquat Slices 吉利金桔果片
The best thing about the robust, golden kumquat (other than its perfect complexion) is that you can eat the entire fruit—peel, seeds, and all. But…maybe only one or two (ok or three or four), because they’re a tad bitter when fresh off the tree, and the oils in the peel make the tongue go numb after a while. These dried and candied kumquat slices change all that.
Tree-ripened fruits are picked, deseeded, and then brined in salt to remove bitter aromatics before getting a light coat of sugar. The peels and pulp are resplendent in color and taste of citrus and caramel, with the lightest note of woody balsam.
In Taiwan, they’re commonly served as a snack with tea. We eat them by the handful and you should too. Use them anywhere you’d want a dried citrus: granola, baked goods, or as a yogurt topping. I’ve even seen them chopped and rolled into dough for a tangyuan sticky rice dumpling. See below:
You can experiment with these in drinks too. Here’s a kumquat latte I had in Hsinchu—the candied kumquat was housemade.
O.OO x Yun Hai Shop
Year of the Snake Red Envelopes
蛇年紅包袋
Here’s our limited edition red envelope collaboration with O.OO for the Year of the Wood Snake. 蛇麼都好. Every set contains three different designs, featuring a unique snake and wishes of good fortune.
In Taiwanese culture, snakes have long been represented as guardians and deities. In this design, a serpent winds across each envelope, adorned with symbols and patterns suggesting their honored position. On these envelopes, O.OO have treated the snake as a line, as a fill, and a carrier of protective symbols.
Each envelope carries one lucky saying for the Year of the Snake:
金蛇迎春: The Golden Snake Welcomes Spring
蛇序呈祥: The Sequence (referring to the four seasons in a year) of the Snake Brings Good Fortune
祥蛇賀歲: The Auspicious Snake Celebrates the New Year
Designed and printed in Taipei with soy-based inks on a risograph printer.
Year of the Snake Pineapple Gift Bundle
新年鳳梨組合
And finally, if you’re looking for another lucky symbol, consider the Golden Diamond Pineapple.
The Taiwanese word for pineapple, ong lai 鳳梨, is a homonym for luck arrives. This gift set highlights all the pineapple products at Yun Hai, an auspicious gift set for a friend or loved one during the Spring Festival.
QQ Snake
If you’ve followed us for the past few years, you know that at this time of year, I release a collection of Yun Hai merch with a hand drawn zodiac mascot, with Qs for eyes. The letters reference QQ, the Taiwanese slang for “al dente.”
Well, wood snake energy has been big and winding and unpredictable as we slide our way into the new year and I’m… not done yet. I know that over the years our little QQ series has developed quite a following, so I will not disappoint you. If the snake year is about transformation, tolerance, and rebalance, I’m grateful for the time to do it right.
For now, please enjoy this QQ graffiti I saw last time I was in Taiwan. I might need to make this into a shirt too.
ssssssssssss,
Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉
Written with editorial support by Amalissa Uytingco, Jasmine Huang, and Lillian Lin. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with friends and subscribe if you haven’t already. I email once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. For more Taiwanese food, head to yunhai.shop, follow us on instagram and twitter, or view the newsletter archives.
That QQ tag would make a great pair of snake eyes! Happy Lunar New Year!