Suzhou-style candy is regarded as one of the most popular and tasty traditional Chinese sweets. There are 150 different kinds of Suzhou "Caishizhai" candy including; colorful jelly drops, candy fruits, pepper-mint drops, pine nut candy, pyramid-shaped sweets, peanut brittle, assorted pine nut jelly, crisp candy, and pine nut jujube. So, if you've got a sweet tooth, Suzhou is a great place to indulge yourself!

Suzhou candies are refined by vegetables and fruits together with maltose and white sugar.

The originator was Jin Meng-zhi, the shopkeeper of Cai Zhi-zhai candy Store in Qing dynasty more than a hundred years ago. It is said during the reign of Emperor Quangxu in Qing dynasty, Cao Cang-zhou , a famed doctor in Suzhou, was called to th palace in Beijing to treat the empress dowager Cixi. Upon his departure, the doctor brought with him some pyramid-shaped sugar from Cai Zhi-zhai Candy Store as a tribute to the lady, who turned out to appreciate the honey and freshness of the sugar and listed it as a “tribute sugar”. The doctor Cao Cang-zhou also drew inspiration from the empress' preference for the sugar and suggested that Cai Zhi-zhai season the sugar with fruit juice and some eatable medicinal materials such as peppermint, licorice root, pine nut, etc. Thus Suzhou candies have acquired the pharmaceutical functions, which can both satisfy people's appetite and achieve some pharmaceutical effects for those who cannot afford a treatment. The fruit store adoped the doctor's suggestion and compounded pyramid-shaped peppermint sugar, which could help clear away lung-heat and nourish the intestines; pyramid-shaped rose sugar, which could help invigorate the blood circulatin as well as pyramid-shaped pinenut sugar which contained fat&protein. When heard of the double function of the colorful pyranid-shaped sugars, people vied buying them and brought the store with a brisk trade.

In order to compete with the occidental juice sugars, Cai Zhi-zhai Candy Store took foreign sugar-making experience for reference, using a wide variety of plants, flowers and fruits and developed more than a hundred types of their pyramid-shaped sugars. Suzhou candies have been featured by moderate honey, freshness and nourishment of yin&yang. Throughout the period of more than a century, Suzhou candies have been retained in the tradition of strict material-selection and elaborate making. The Pinenut Sugar made with malt extract, osmanthus and has, although all combined into a whole, exhibits three distinctive colors that are clearly discernable through the glassine. It also has three different tastes. The pyramid-shaped rose sugar is made with roses, plums and white sugar, exhibiting a pink color. A single bite would provide one distinctive flavor with its crispness and softness.