The sweet art of sugar blowing: The story of Cheung Chau's candy master

Candy maker Louis To doesn’t stick to conventional store hours. He opens his shop whenever he feels like it, yet he never fails to attract large crowds when he starts working. Once he opens his handmade wooden oven and kneads and pulls hot sugar syrup (at least 170-degree temperature), people come by to watch his process. His self-thought approach moulds the sugar into various shapes with his hands and scissors. In just two to three minutes, he transforms the glossy, semi-liquid syrup into lifelike green dragons, horses, or qilins – the mythical Chinese beasts commonly seen in Cheung Chau festivals. It’s like watching the work of a street magician.

As one of Hong Kong's intangible cultural heritages, the blown sugar technique is a traditional folk art with a history of more than 600 years. The essential equipment for a confectioner includes a heating stove, ingredients, and sugar-blowing tools. The syrup used is usually made by heating sucrose and maltose. During the heating process, the confectioner must carefully control the softness and temperature of the syrup. They knead, twist, press, pull, and blow the sugar at high temperatures to achieve the desired shape before it cools. In Hong Kong, the sugar-pulling technique is often showcased during traditional festivals such as the Cheung Chau Bun Festival and Tin Hau's Birthday.

To developed his sugar-blowing technique by watching confectioners at their stalls when he was only six years old. He often visited the stalls with other children to observe the process. "I was fascinated by the craft. I would become so absorbed in watching them that I would get scolded for missing meals," To shares. He witnessed masters creating sugar figurines of mythological creatures such as the Monkey King and Zhu Bajie, as well as a mouth-blown sugar teapot.

After moving to Cheung Chau, To noticed confectioners during traditional festivals, such as Chinese New Year and Bun Festival, which reminded him of his childhood memories. Initially, he sought a teacher to teach him the art of sugar pulling at a confectionery shop in Cheung Chau. However, no one was willing to reveal their secret techniques to him. Undeterred, he decided to learn the skill himself, starting with the basics of heating sugar.

To experimented with over 10 varieties of maltose, even spending an entire night cleaning up the syrup he spilt on the stove. He even survived a kitchen disaster when the syrup exploded from the pot. His attempts to create sugar candies covered his hands in blisters for over half a year. Although he felt like giving up every time he saw the blisters and bruises on his hands, he persevered. When his wounds began to heal, To became determined to keep trying until he succeeded.

In the first 10 years, To used maltose to make his syrup. However, he later switched to the more expensive isomalt, thanks to a tip from a Cheung Chau local. The man would bring his granddaughter to buy sugar figurines almost every week, and, like To, he has fond childhood memories of these confections. During one of their conversations, the man expressed his desire to try To’s candies but couldn’t due to his diabetes. This prompted To to experiment with isomalt, a safe sugar substitute for people with diabetes.

According to To, isomalt is a ‘high-temperature sugar’ that must be heated at around 220 degrees to be used for sugar pulling. It looks even glossier than regular maltose and is often used as the sugar coat for medicines due to its strong water resistance properties. Using isomalt, he produces clear and glossy syrup, which he dyes with natural plant pigments extracted from giant spear lily, mulberries, and beetroot to produce different coloured syrups. 

With isomalt, To’s sugar figurines can last for a longer period in Hong Kong’s humid climate. All thanks to this man, he now puts up ‘sugar-free’ and ‘10-year shelf life’ tags at his stall.

Around the world, sweets have always been a reliable source of happiness that connects one another. As an introverted person, To finds connecting and interacting with others easier through his sugar-pulling performances. He has upgraded his toolbox from a small kit tucked away inside the store’s rice cooker to a small wooden box with a built-in stove, which allows him to perform his craft on the go. To has travelled to several countries, including Spain and Portugal, to showcase his artisanal candy-making skill. During a trip to Berlin, he ran out of syrup after several hours of non-stop candy-making. As he was about to leave, a group of children on bikes chased him down, having queued for a long time but unable to get their candy. To believes that sugar figurines can be considered a work of art, but the process of sugar pulling is also a form of performative art. His performances act as a one-man show, where he uses his hands and scissors to create the candies, but he also uses sugar-blowing techniques where he gets his audience to participate by blowing into a narrow tube while he sculpts.

To's sugar figurines are almost too pretty to eat, but he still wants his customers to taste them. According to To, it's sweets, so it's best to eat them. He believes that his sugar figurines enable people to connect, more so when they consume them. "After eating them, the sweets enter your body and quite literally become a part of you."