Candied haws are skewers of small, tart fruit coated in a glassy shell of hardened sugar syrup. Known in Chinese as tanghulu (糖葫芦), they’re one of China’s most iconic street snacks, traditionally made with hawthorn berries and eaten during the winter months. The coating shatters like glass when you bite through it, giving way to the sour, slightly bitter fruit underneath. If you’ve seen them on social media recently, you’re not alone: tanghulu has gone viral worldwide, with creators dipping everything from strawberries to cherry tomatoes in crackling sugar shells.
The Fruit Behind the Name
The “haws” in candied haws are hawthorn berries, the fruit of a small deciduous tree that grows across northern China. Each berry is roughly the size of a large cherry, about 15 to 25 millimeters in diameter, with bright red skin and a mealy, slightly acidic flesh. Raw hawthorn has a pleasant tartness with a hint of bitterness, which is exactly why it pairs so well with a sweet sugar coating. The contrast between the sour fruit and the crunchy sugar is the whole point of the snack.
Chinese hawthorn (the species used for tanghulu) produces larger fruit than the hawthorn trees common in Europe or North America, making it much better suited for skewering and eating as a snack. The berries are typically threaded onto bamboo sticks, anywhere from five to ten per skewer, then dipped in molten sugar.
Origins in the Song Dynasty
Tanghulu traces its roots back roughly 800 years to China’s Southern Song Dynasty, and two origin stories have survived. The more popular one involves a queen whose health was declining despite the best efforts of court physicians. A doctor specializing in digestive ailments suggested she eat five to ten sugar-boiled hawthorn berries before each meal. The treatment worked, and word spread among the public, turning the sugary hawthorn combination into a widely loved snack.
A second tradition credits the Khitan people, a nomadic group from northeastern China, who sugar-coated fruits and froze them as a preservation method, keeping them fresh through harsh winters. Whether either story is literally true, the common thread is the same: candied haws emerged from the overlap of food preservation, folk medicine, and cold weather.
How the Sugar Shell Is Made
The signature crunch comes from heating a sugar-and-water syrup to about 300 to 302°F (149 to 150°C), a stage candy makers call “hard crack.” At this temperature, the syrup loses nearly all its moisture. When it cools on the surface of the fruit, it solidifies into a thin, transparent, glass-like shell that snaps cleanly when you bite into it.
The process sounds simple but demands precision. A few degrees too low and the coating stays sticky and chewy. A few degrees too high and the sugar begins to caramelize, turning amber and tasting burnt. Street vendors in Beijing and other northern Chinese cities have been perfecting the technique for generations, dipping skewers in a single smooth motion and letting them cool in the freezing outdoor air. At home, most recipes call for placing freshly dipped skewers on oiled parchment or a silicone mat until the shell hardens, which takes only a minute or two.
Modern Fruit Variations
Traditional tanghulu uses only hawthorn berries, but the technique works on almost any firm fruit. Strawberries are the most popular modern substitute, especially outside China where hawthorn berries can be hard to find. Grapes, cherries, kiwi slices, mandarin orange segments, dragon fruit, pineapple chunks, and even cherry tomatoes all make appearances. The key requirement is that the fruit’s surface needs to be dry before dipping. Any moisture will prevent the sugar from adhering and can cause the hot syrup to sputter.
Strawberry tanghulu, in particular, drove the snack’s explosion on TikTok and other platforms. The visual appeal is hard to beat: a jewel-bright berry encased in a perfectly transparent shell that audibly cracks on camera.
Hawthorn’s Role in Traditional Medicine
Hawthorn isn’t just a snack ingredient in China. It’s a well-established medicinal plant. Known as shan zha in traditional Chinese medicine, hawthorn berry has been used for centuries to stimulate digestion and improve appetite. It’s the single most commonly prescribed herb in Chinese medicine for managing high blood lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides).
Modern research has backed up several of these traditional uses. Hawthorn contains high concentrations of flavonoids and compounds called procyanidins, which appear to relax blood vessels and support healthy circulation. Studies in animals have shown that hawthorn extract can reduce total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL cholesterol while also protecting against plaque buildup in arteries. Its benefit in chronic heart failure has been documented in clinical settings as well. The berries also contain modest amounts of vitamin C (ranging from about 2 to 9 mg per 100 grams depending on the species) along with B vitamins and amino acids.
Of course, once hawthorn berries are dipped in a hard sugar shell, you’re no longer eating a health food. But the medicinal reputation of the fruit is part of what gave tanghulu its cultural staying power.
Calories and Sugar Content
A 100-gram serving of tanghulu contains roughly 200 calories and about 45 grams of sugar, almost all of it from the coating. That works out to around 100 to 130 calories for one or two skewers, which is a reasonable portion if you’re treating it as a dessert rather than a snack you graze on. For context, 45 grams of sugar is slightly more than what you’d find in a can of soda. The fruit itself contributes some fiber and micronutrients, but the sugar shell is the dominant nutritional factor.
Keeping the Crunch
Tanghulu is best eaten within a few hours of being made. The sugar shell is in an amorphous (non-crystalline) state when it first hardens, which is what gives it that clean, glassy snap. Over time, especially in humid conditions, the shell absorbs moisture from the air and from the fruit itself. This causes the sugar to recrystallize, turning the coating grainy, sticky, and soft. In a humid kitchen, this can happen in as little as an hour or two.
Cold, dry air is your friend. This is one reason tanghulu became a winter street food in northern China, where freezing temperatures keep the coating stable. If you’re making them at home, storing finished skewers in the refrigerator (uncovered, so condensation doesn’t form) can buy you a few extra hours. But realistically, tanghulu is a make-it-and-eat-it treat. That fleeting crunch is part of what makes it special.