I had these on the mainland, up in Sichuan, 2 years back. No-one can tell me what they are.
They caught my eye as the black ones looked like raisins, but they tasted nothing like that. Quite tart, and you wouldn’t want to eat a lot of them.
I suppose they could be some kind of plum, but they seemed a bit looooong.
Look like prunes. Gotta be plums no?
it looks like dates or dried jujubies
Ha! - the Chinese red jujube. Looks very promising. Here’s a stock pic. Is there a brother of a black jujube?
More research needed, later…
http://www.chinagronet.com/c/51737/Product/59458.html
yes, there are also black jujubes. though there are also the really dried ones, which you have to cook to eat. the ones shown in your picture looks like the kind that can be eaten without cooking.
Here we are - brother and sister together.
Yes, both the black and red were sold as roadside snack food (or maybe a health food, and I was meant to prepare them in some way). I snacked on them.
Thanks hansioux!
More info on the jujube here. I’ve yet to taste them fresh.
http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/jujube.htm
The jujube originated in China where they have been cultivated for more than 4,000 years.
The jujube is a small, deciduous tree, growing to 40 feet tall.
The fruit is round/elongated, cherry-size to plum-size depending on cultivar. It has a thin, edible skin surrounding sweet whitish flesh. The single hard stone contains two seeds. The immature fruit is green in color. The fully mature fruit is entirely red. Shortly after becoming fully red, the fruit begins to soften and wrinkle.
IF you are looking for Jujubes there is no better place than Gongguan township in Miaoli. Cool jujube tea is the business.
by the way, the Jujubes we are talking about here are small. And GongGuan in MiaoLi has entire farm and restaurants dedicated to the small jujubes.
but there are also the large kind of jujubes that people eat as a fruit. If you go to GongGuan at the right season, you can eat the tiny jujubes fresh, and they tates a lot like the big ones.
Jujube in Chinese is 棗子 (Zao-Zi) , the small red ones are called 紅棗 (Hong-Zao), the black ones are called 黑棗 (Hei-Zao)
do people eat the black ones fresh? or are the different colors just a different style of processing? I only ever ate them fresh as i dont tend to like dried fruit. But would like to see the difference. We have them a lot in hot pot though as an herbal (a herbal for the grammar nazis) ingredient.
I’ve only seen the green ones eaten fresh, the red ones for hot pot and jujube tea, and no clue about the black ones 
. Fresh zaozi are like crunchy apples.
