Kuai Kuai 乖乖 has been a favorite snack among many Taiwanese since the late 60s. It’s a corn or rice puff, similar in texture to a Cheeto, but flavored with five-spice, seaweed, coconut, or other Taiwanese leaning flavors. This snack, adorned with an ambiguous pirate character, is notoriously hard to find in the United States, so we brought it in ourselves.

One of the most fun things about Kuai Kuai is their collaborations, often with farmers’ associations, supermarkets, or other Taiwanese food purveyors. We've brought in three limited edition flavors of rice-based Kuai Kuai, each one of which champions regionally specific Taiwanese agriculture:

The seaweed flavor is made using sea cabbage (aka green laver) and sea lettuce, both cultivated from the Pacific waters off the coast of Hualien. The result is savory, slightly marine, and a little bit sweet. Fish powder and peanut butter contributes a nutty seafood flavor that reminds us of the best shrimp chip.

The mango flavor is a collaboration with the Taitung County Farmers' Association, pairing Taitung's most fragrant rice with its sweetest mangoes—a combination that conjures mango sticky rice. The rice for the base of the Kuai Kuai puff comes from the rural township of Beinan 卑南, known for its short-grain rice with al dente or "Q" texture and nutty fragrance. The aroma complements the deep sweetness of xiaxue 夏雪 (summer snow) mangoes, a golden-colored Taiwanese variety that has the sweet intensity and electric zing of tu 土 mangoes (the same kind used in our dried green mangoes), but with more flesh and a smaller seed.

The roasted sweet potato flavor is reminiscent of a favorite wintery treat: sweet potato, roasted over charcoal until caramelized and custardy sweet on the inside. As a special collaboration with K.K. Orchard 瓜瓜園, Taiwan's largest sweet potato farming company, this Kuai Kuai is made from roasted Tainong No. 57 sweet potatoes, known for their rich, fluffy, chewy, yellow interior. Its sweetness and earthy chestnut aroma complements the nutty brown rice fragrance of the Kuai Kuai.

Due to the limited nature of these collaborations, we will restock these for as long as they're popular and available.

About

In its original form, Kuai Kuai 乖乖 is a corn puff snack, most commonly offered in cream coconut or five spice flavor. The name translates to "obedient" or "well-behaved," which can also be a Mandarin term of endearment for small children, like "sweetie" or "darling."

Because of the name of the snack and the green bag it's packaged in, the coconut flavor has become something like a good luck charm for the island's IT infrastructure. According to many a Taiwanese engineer, the green bag has magic properties that influence technology to behave well. Only the green bag though, because green means go, like a green light. Read more here.

Tasting Notes and Usage

Seaweed: savory, marine, and toasty, with an airy, crisp texture

Mango: nutty and fragrant white rice that unravels into deeply sweet and pronounced mango the more you chew, with an airy-crisp texture

Roasted Sweet Potato: earthy sweetness, chestnut, and custard, with a denser and crispier texture compared to other flavors

Ingredients and Instructions

Seaweed: Rice, sugar, palm oil, fish powder (cod), peanut butter, maltose, sea lettuce, sea cabbage (green laver), modified food starch (oxidized starch), monosodium glutamate, soy sauce powder (soy sauce, maltodextrin, salt), salt, garlic powder, yeast extract, mushroom extract (disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate), ethyl maltol, soy lecithin, sweetener (licorice extract), antioxidant (mixed tocopherols)

Contains fish, peanuts, soy, wheat.
Manufactured in a facility that also processes milk, eggs, nuts, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, sesame, mango.

Store in a dry and cool place.

Best by November 26, 2025.

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Mango: Taitung rice, palm oil, glucose, sugar, mango juice, mango juice powder (mango puree, maltodextrin, sodium starch octenyl succinate, sugar, mango flavor, citric acid, beta-carotene), powdered milk, whey powder, salt, natural flavors, soy lecithin, citric acid, lactic acid powder (lactic acid, calcium lactate, silicon dioxide), antioxidant (mixed tocopherols), FD&C Yellow No. 5

Contains milk, soy, mango.
Manufactured in a facility that also processes wheat, peanuts, sesame, eggs, nuts, fish, and shellfish.

Store in a dry and cool place.

Best by January 14, 2026.

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Roasted Sweet Potato: Rice, sugar, brown rice, palm oil, sweet potato starch, powdered milk, whey powder, sweet potato purée, honey, cellulose (from wheat), calcium carbonate, soy lecithin, antioxidant (mixed tocopherols)

Contains milk, soy, wheat.
Manufactured in a facility that also processes sesame, eggs, nuts, mango, fish, and shellfish.

Store in a dry and cool place.

Best by November 6, 2025.

Specifications and Dimensions

Seaweed and Mango
Net Weight (individual bag): 1.83 oz / 52 g

Dimensions (individual bag): 8.7" L x 7.1" W x 2.2" H / 22 cm L x 18 cm W x 5.5 cm H

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Roasted Sweet Potato
Net Weight (individual bag): 2.12 oz / 60 g

Dimensions (individual bag): 8.7" L x 7.1" W x 2.2" H / 22 cm L x 18 cm W x 5.5 cm H