Saturday 3 April 2010

Penang's original Tambun biscuits

I'm sure most everybody would be familiar with the tambun biscuits-in-a-box as sold by Ghee Hiang, Him Heang and loads of other imitators. Nowadays, there are all sorts of flavours too ... original, coffee, durian, etc. In my opinion, the original is still the best.

Traditionally, the tambun biscuits were not sold in boxes. Instead, they were sold in packs of fives. Five pieces of the biscuits would be rolled up in paper and sold just like that across the counter. No gimmicky marketing stuff. Just plainly wrapped in translucent paper..There would be two varieties: the sweet ones wrapped in paper printed with red ink and the salty ones wrapped in paper printed with blue ink.


Those were the days. The biscuits sold simply because of quality and nothing more. By the way, it's still possible to buy them that way.

1 comment:

stephen said...

Thanks for the memories.I have often wondered whether red was sweet or was it blue as my recollection fades with time.I prefer the salted variety.It used to cost 25 cents back then for a packet of 5 pieces.And they were larger, the biscuits that is.They taste great after a short spell in the oven and with coffee!!