HONG KONG — China’s famous White Rabbit brand of sweets was a hit in Los Angeles over the recent Chinese New Year when an ice cream maker launched a new product based on the iconic milk-based confectionery.

Shanghai manufacturer Guan Sheng Yuan — which has been making White Rabbit sweets since 1959 — asked its agent to investigate reports that an ice cream was being sold in the US west coast city using packaging similar to its famous White Rabbit brand sweets.

In fact the ice cream maker Wanderlust Creamery, together with the food website Foodbeast, had launched a White Rabbit ice cream — using dissolved pieces of the sweets, including their edible rice paper wraps — as a special Lunar New Year treat for its customers.

The new ice cream, sold using packaging which resembles the signature White Rabbit wrapping, was such a hit in Los Angeles that the company extended its sales period from its planned nine days up to the end of March.

Wanderlust’s co-founder Jon-Patrick Lopez was quoted by the American lifestyle portal foodandwine.com last week as saying that there were about 1.3 pieces of White Rabbit candy in every scoop of the ice cream.

Wanderlust sold 50 gallons (189 litres) of White Rabbit ice cream from February 1 to 20. Then 50 more gallons were sold from February 21 to 22 as word spread. On February 24 alone, Wanderlust sold its remaining 39 gallons of White Rabbit ice cream — nearly 1,000 scoops — within eight hours, according to the report.

The report said that demand was so strong that Wanderlust struggled to source enough White Rabbit sweets for the ice cream.

White Rabbit is a household name in China and its iconic sweets, with their distinctive jumping rabbit wrapper, occupy a special place in the collective memory of generations of Chinese families. The confectionery has become for many an indispensable part of Chinese New Year celebrations.

News of the craze for the new ice cream in Los Angeles prompted some internet users in China to speculate if it had been made by Guan Sheng Yuan and some even complained that it should have been launched in China.

Many online commenters said they wanted a chance to taste the White Rabbit ice cream too.

“For this reason alone, I decided that I am going to LA again,” wrote one internet user on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

On March 3, Shanghai Morning Post reported that Guo Sheng Yuan had not entered into any cooperative arrangement with Wanderlust Creamery.

A report in China Daily on March 4 said Guan Sheng Yuan was delighted with the new-found popularity of its White Rabbit sweets in the US. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST