Six Fortune – Prepared Broad Bean Sichuan Spicy Flavor
Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Salty: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Sweet: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Umami: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Heat: ⭐⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Quick Flavor Notes: Warm spices, earthy, cedary, mala
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Crispy and crunchy
Ingredients: Broad Bean, Palm Oil, Soybean Oil, Salt, Monosodium Glutamate, Chili, Sichuan Pepper, Aniseed Powder, Cinnamon Powder, Maltodextrin, Black Pepper, Chili Extract, Sichuan Pepper Extract, Sucralose, Sodium Phospates.
Six Fortune is a Taiwanese brand specializing in Asian snacks, cooking ingredients, and sauces. In business since 1975 the company makes both traditional and trendy new snacks. According to their website these fried broad bean snacks are a very traditional street food that were quite popular before the introduction of western snacks such as potato chips to the region. In order to recapture the excitement and expand the love of this product Six Fortune has created several innovative flavors including this, their Spicy Sichuan, a western-China inspired Cumin flavor, and a garlic flavor.
Broad beans, also known as fava beans, are the primary ingredient. High in protein and fiber and filled with important nutrients such as calcium, iron, and potassium broad beans are one of the earliest known domesticated agricultural crops. Scientists believe that the first example of broad beans being farmed dates back over 10,000 years to what is now Israel. Since these are Sichuan flavored it’s also worth noting that broad beans are used extensively in Sichuan cuisine, with the region’s ubiquitous cooking ingredient doubanjiang being made from fermented broad beans, chiles, and soy beans. In addition to the beans these contain many common Sichuan ingredients and aromatics including Sichuan peppercorns, chili peppers, cinnamon, aniseed (common in Chinese five spice), as well as MSG. One things I am disappointed to see are chile pepper extract and Sichuan pepper extract, I do always prefer an all natural product, and as I’ve found with 50Hertz Tingly Nuts you can have an all natural product that still gives you an authentic flavor.
These Six Fortune Broad Beans are admirably crisp and crunchy, the texture is quite addictive. The flavor is a pleasant mix of sweet and savory. The warm spices and the sweetener play against the chile pepper and the cedary woody and slightly metallic flavor of the Sichuan peppercorns. Speaking of those Sichuan peppercorns they, and much of the chili flakes, settle to the bottom of the bag. Despite giving the bag a healthy shake before opening it I discovered the flavor balance shifted the further down the bag I went. The beans near the top had more of a balance towards the sweeter warm spice flavors, very little heat, and none of the numbing sensation or Sichuan peppercorn flavor. Towards the bottom of the bag the heat level increased and the Sichuan peppercorn flavor and numbing sensation became more more prominent. Perhaps these need an extra vigorous shaking to make sure that everything is evenly distributed. Even with the gradient of flavors however these are delicious and the bites that included more chili pepper and more Sichuan peppercorn actually had a decent amount of kick to them.
I’m happy to recommend Six Fortune Sichuan Spicy Flavor Prepared Broadbeans. They do have an authentic Sichuan flavor and if you shake them up better than I did you should have a nice balanced MaLa numbing heat effect throughout the bag.
