My partner Sharon (her personal website here) has recently returned form a trip to China where she was at a meeting of the United Nations Ozone group panel.

Knowing my love of good food and teas, she brought back a rather impressive presentation box containing Moon Cakes, which are a traditional pastry cake that are consumed by Chinese people at the time of The Autumn Festival in China, and is also sometimes called the Moon Cake Festival.

Sharon was staying at the Yuda Palace Hotel in Zhengzhou, and they produced this magnificent presentation box in red silk.

Mooncake Presentation BoxA studio shot of a red silk Mooncake Presentation Gift Package including Chrysanthemum Tea

Anyhow the box was so beautiful I decided to take a photo of it, and thought it was worth more than a quick snap. The box lid had a beautiful (silk screen?) print of what I presume is a chrysanthemum, as that  was the accompanying tea that was recommended to drink with the mooncakes and also came in a splendid red silk presentation box of its own. The glass tea container is shown with some of the tea (which is rolled into balls) in front of it on the plate. As you can see, the tea produces a strong golden brew which is very refreshing and goes very well with the mooncakes.

THere are six packages within the big box each containing one mooncake which you can see on the plate, both as a whole and sliced in half, the cut one containing what we think is red bean paste, as this is apparently a traditional filling. The other boxes had differing lettering on them, so maybe the fillings will be different. We shall see in due course as we are eating them slowly as they are very energy intensive.

The small rectangular box in the middle contains plastic utensil to eaat the mooncakes with, which was  a slight letdown, given the opulence of the rest of the package.

Apparently though, other mooncake presentation packages can cost ridiculous amounts of money, so maybe the politicians and big wheels have to buy and give in accordance with their perceived positions in the firmament.

Sharon really liked the small stone turtle, so I included it in the photograph for luck.

Autumn Festival Information Link 1

Autumn Festival Information Link 2

Autumn Festival Information Link 3 - Wikipedia