The unique sweet potatoes grown in Hualien County’s Xincheng Township have become so popular that the roast sweet potato stands along Highway 9 are having trouble getting enough tubers to keep up with demand.
The favorite of tourists is probably the “Yuxin” variety, or “taro-like sweet potato,” which contains a sweet, unique flavor. However, due to shortages, exports to Taipei, direct sales to home consumers and contract orders, only about half the total local crop is available for the stalls, making it harder for them to represent what has become the flagship culinary product of Hualien.
Sweet potato production and sales manager Lin Cong-ming said that of the nine different sweet potatoes introduced from Okinawa in 1992, only two survived screening, each bearing a different color.
After many improvements, the sweet potatoes produced in Hualien have become distinct from the Okinawa type in their excellent texture and flavor. These sweet potatoes grow on beaches near the Pacific Ocean in an environment similar to that of the Okinawa sweet potatoes, with monsoon winds bringing sea mists onshore. Some farmers have tried varieties from other places, but because of differences in climate or environment, the attempts have met technical difficulties.
When the Yuxin variety encountered such popularity on the market, local businesses also wanted to use it in making the famous Hualien sweet potato cakes and other processed products. However, because of the limited quantities of the Yuxin variety, they have to use other sweet potatoes in producing their cakes instead.
The Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station said the sweet potatoes used in these and other local products are mostly red-skinned, yellow-fleshed tubers. The strange thing is, though, that most of them are produced near the ocean, with fields concentrated near Beipu and Kangle villages in Xincheng.
Famous producers have tried using cheaper sweet potatoes from other places, but the texture and flavor are just not the same, and they are moving toward signing contracts with local farmers at prices that can be 30 percent more than those for ordinary sweet potatoes.
The station emphasized that, based on the high market demand, work has been underway in recent years to develop a new variety of sweet potato suited to the Hualien area, and exemplars are available for test plots at no charge.
(This article originally appeared in The Liberty Times March 7.)