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The Creative Coffee Revolution: When Espresso Meets Tangyuan

I have to say, netizens' creativity with coffee is truly immense! Here they come again, bringing new innovations to coffee! This time, they've set their sights on the traditional snack - tangyuan!! When Western coffee encounters one of the representatives of Chinese traditional snacks, what kind of magical "chemical reaction" will occur?!

Recently, a new coffee combination has gone viral on social platforms—espresso + tangyuan, which netizens call "coffee tangyuan." The check-in posts on Xiaohongshu have already reached 20,000+. After seeing this, I have to ask: are you speechless? Although this might reveal some strangeness, indeed many netizens who have tried it have expressed: it's really delicious!!

The Cultural Fusion Behind the Trend

Tangyuan is one of China's traditional snacks and also the most characteristic food of the traditional Chinese Lantern Festival, carrying people's yearning and expectations for a happy life. Nowadays, as Western coffee becomes increasingly Sinicized, coffee products and Chinese specialty delicacies continue to merge with each other, which also reflects the growing demand for coffee among Chinese people.

How to Make Coffee Tangyuan

After a brief investigation, I found that the production process of this viral coffee tangyuan is quite simple: boil water in a pot, then add frozen tangyuan and cook until done, then remove the tangyuan and add some extracted espresso concentrate to complete. Some people also rinse the tangyuan in ice water to increase the chewy texture. Oh, and there's also an upgraded version—that is, adding dried osmanthus flowers and dried rose petals as decoration to the coffee tangyuan, which makes the aroma even richer.

Taste Experience: A Divided Opinion

The sweet tangyuan neutralizes the bitterness of coffee, the dense crema of espresso blends with the sesame filling, and the chewy texture creates a first bitter then sweet experience. Different people have different tastes, and netizens are equally divided into two camps.

Some netizens expressed that it's really delicious: "I made it at home myself, the sweetness of the tangyuan neutralizes the bitterness of the coffee, I think it tastes quite good." Others even called it "This is the best CP combination, bar none," "Chinese affogato," "Both are my favorites, how did I never think of eating them this way before," "What kind of divine combination is this!"....

But there are also many netizens who said they couldn't accept it and found it truly unpalatable: "I love drinking coffee, and I love eating tangyuan, but I can't accept them combined together," "What kind of strange thing is this, neither Chinese nor Western," "Both coffee drinkers and tangyuan eaters are speechless," "I made it today, yue~," "I've tried it and it's really terrible"...

What about you? Can you accept such a "strange" combination? After seeing this, do you want to yue~, or do you want to quickly cook some tangyuan to try!

Other Bizarre Coffee Combinations

On the internet, these strange coffee combinations are not uncommon. There have been many popular combinations before, such as: coffee + tofu pudding, coffee + mung bean popsicles, or coffee + black sesame paste. These are all genuinely mixed together, not the kind of pairing where you drink a cup of coffee and eat a fried dough stick!

I can only say that coffee, tofu pudding, mung bean popsicles, and black sesame paste are all acceptable individually, but when put together, you still have to consider whether your stomach can accept it...

Of course, besides these "special drinks" that have been added to various coffee shop menus, there are also netizens' failed versions. I searched for coffee CP on a certain social platform and saw a blogger post summarizing netizens' strange coffee combinations, summarizing several types, umm... netizens' imagination is something I dare not imagine!! After reading, I felt a little like yue~ really just a little...

I'm just saying these things might really should perhaps be consumed separately~🤦‍♀️ After reading this, do you feel like drinking coffee for an hour straight to heal?! What other strange coffee combinations have you encountered???

Image source: Internet

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