The varying renditions of mooncakes made available to us during Mid-Autumn Festival are endless; from traditional ones with salted egg yolk to those with unique flavours like milo or chocolate truffle.
No one really thought you could do the same for what appears to be a strictly savoury food like ba zhang, otherwise known as glutinous rice dumplings. Although available all year round, the bamboo-wrapped ba zhang is usually stuffed with savoury ingredients like minced meat, braised mushrooms and chestnut.
Yet, Taiwan Starbucks is taking it a notch up this Dragonboat Festival from 7 June 2019 with the release of dessert versions of ba zhang. More accurately, they are releasing two new jelly dumplings — Sweet Potato and Cranberry Double Fruit.
The dumplings retain their traditional pyramid shape but glutinous rice is replaced by gelatinous jelly encasing a sweet filling. You can actually see the deep purple sweet potato filling through the grass jelly exterior of their Sweet Potato dumpling.
For something more refreshing, we’re sure the Cranberry Double Fruit dumpling is bound to fare better. While the first fruit revealed is cranberry as the icy jelly exterior, we’re curious to find out if the second fruit is mango, explaining the bright mustard centre.
It’s a bummer that Starbucks Taiwan is not releasing the individual pricing for the dessert dumplings. They would, however, be part of the Dragon Boat Festival Gift Box (TW$990 for 12 pieces, TW$580 for six pieces).
We know Starbucks’ dessert ba zhang is definitely not a new thing, but it has remained exclusively available only in China and Taiwan; let’s hope we get a share of it too!
Dates & times: Available from 7 June 2019 in all Starbucks Taiwan outlets
Prices: TW$580 – TW$990 per pax
