Hangzhou sesame speciality

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I'm not really sure what I was trying to prove when buying these - they weren't exactly the most appetizing looking things on the shelf. However, I can't really write a blog about m&ms so here we are: black sesame "things". Now, from the pic on the box it looked to me like some sort of sesame flavoured chewy toffee. Nope. They're actually incredibly soft, so much so that they're hard to pick up without them crumbling into a mound of powder. However, the advantage of this texture is that it literally melts on your tongue, as long as you can get over the rather strange flavour of black sesame (more of a bitter taste compared to white sesame). Question is, what exactly are they - I'm marketing these to you as sweets - the box does say 传统名点 (Hángzhōu tèchăn / Hangzhou speciality). However, quite honestly they could just as easily be packets of sesame flavouring for cooking. I'll check with a Chinese speaker tomorrow - in the meantime they go quite well with a pot of green tea...
One box 8rmb / 80p

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