So I am, as you know, half-Chinese (, Bob). I am something of a foodie, and so it took me by surprise that I had never heard of this kind of candy. Bear brought me some on a visit last week.
Dragon’s Beard Candy is apparently about 2000 years old, which is interesting since it’s essentially coated with a coarser and less-sweet grade of cotton candy than we’re used to that’s apparently made in a way similar to the way some Chinese chefs make noodles (pulling and folding).
Bear brought me both the Yuhin Icy-crispy Dragon Beard Candy flavor and the Yuhin Popping Dragon Beard Candy.
In both cases, the fillings were mildly sweet and more about texture/sensation than flavor (to me). The popping flavor had some mild pop-rocks action, the icy-crispy was mentholated (mildly). Also, the beard part of the candy was really not that sweet. (The Wikipedia entry suggests that this is by design. Sometimes the initial lump of sweets that’s pulled into the strands and fibers is partly made of maltose which is not very sweet.) The initial texture was fibrous (one of my other tasters compared it to eating a tampon – I assume because they’re cylindrical, white and fibrous) but the fibers dissolved almost immediately and the subsequent taste/texture experience was almost entirely about the filling.
I can totally see how these can be an acquired taste, but I don’t really see a need to seek them out. Chinese seem to often have a weird fixation on delicacies, and I think these candies may fall into that category. Sometimes delicacies are pursued to the point of species extinction, so I try not to participate in that dynamic if I don’t have to.