Crunchy candy is one of the famous Chinese traditional pastries. Usually, crunchy candies are in small chunks, while Yangliuqing crunchy candies are long and flat, made of unbroken threadlike sugar.

The craftsmanship of Yangliuqing Crunchy Candies has been century old to be one of the intangible cultural heritages of Xiqing District.

Xu Liansen is the third generation of inheritor of Yangliuqing Xu's Crunchy Candy. He is nearly 70 years old but still hale and hearty. "Crunchy candy" is special for him: "I'm the third generation of it, my son is the fourth. I have made it like forever, it's part of my life. I'm happy as long as my regular customers come again."

Yangliuqing crunch candies are made in purely manual workshop, usually from August around Mid-Autumn Festival  to next year early summer. Main raw materials include sesame, sesame oil, sweet-scented osmanthus and white sugar. Sesame processing, sugaring off, pulling and folding the mix of sugar and sesame, cutting and packing, multiple steps are involved. Small sesames need to be washed, decorticated,  dried, fried,  smoked, saccharified, sifted and rolled over. One layer will be made after one pull and one fold of sesame and sugar; a piece of crunchy candy less than 5cm is unexpectedly with over hundred layers.

"Once the sesames start to be fried, one person need to be there to control the fire. Too quick, they will taste bitter, too slow, they will be spongy without fragrance.", introduced by Xu Liansen. Craftsmen of crunchy candy must be skillful and fully experienced, or it's really hard to make the right taste.

Xu Liansen is well versed on skills of crunchy candy. He keeps using the traditional materials and refines the production. Finished crunchy candies are equally sized, tasting sweet but not greasy, crisp but not sticky like "countless threadlike sugars melt in your mouth immediately".

Xu's Crunchy Candy is a famous brand in Yangliuqing Town. As long as tourists visit Ruyi Avenue, they will taste the specialty snack and bring some home as souvenir.

Visit the millennial ancient Yangliuqing town, taste a piece of "crisp and sweet" crunchy candy and experience the unique charms of Tianjin culture on banks of the canal.