A lot of Taiwan's foods are relegated to certain temperature seasons. Hot pot is great for the winter, but you can't eat it in the summer. "Icey" is great in the summer, but you can't eat it in the winter. There are many more examples but I haven't touched on them in this blog before.
There is one food that is allowed to be eaten in both the heat and the cold. It is called "sweet soup." It's basically a sugary soup that is made from red beans. As you can see above there are several other sweet things that you can choose to put in it, ranging from tapioca balls to different kinds of gelatin-like cubes. Many people love it, and while I will eat it, as mentioned before my brain can't wrap itself around the idea that beans are a sweet dessert food here.
The reason that it's so popular is because it can be served either warm or cold. So in the winter it's a sweet and warm treat, and in the summer it's a refreshing and cooling snack. It really might not seem like much, but when you take a step back it is quite impressive as it truly is one of the very rare foods that is both considered a winter food and a summer food in Taiwan. Which essentially means it's a year round food, since in Taiwan it's scorching summer most of the year and a cool "winter" period for the other three months.
