Om nom nom! Squawk! Angry Birds Mooncakes Hit China

Last month we saw Rovio Mobile give a sneak peak of its next Angry Birds Seasons update, which will be themed around the upcoming Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, along with new China-oriented merchandise in the form of mooncakes.

And now, for the first time, we get a closer look at these traditional Chinese culinary concoctions as they go on sale in China. You can grab a pair of bird-shaped mooncakes (pictured above) – with a pretty conventional savoury egg yolk and lotus paste centre – for just 98 RMB. That’s US$15 at the increasingly Monopoly money value of the greenback. They’re available from Rovio’s official partner on a Taobao TMall – take a look here – and come in a pretty presentational tin with a greetings card.

Mooncakes are a long-standing institution in China, and are generally offered in increasingly elaborate packaging. The Angry Birds mooncakes are fairly averagely priced. In China, even chains such as Starbucks and Haagen-Dazs offer up their own style of sweet or savoury mooncakes for this festival.

Not just mooncakes - official Angry Birds iPhone cases are now available on Taobao in China too.

Along with these ‘cakes’ come Mid-Autumn festival-themed Angry Birds T-shirts and iPhone 4 cases (pictured right).

This year’s lunar festival falls on Monday September 12th. At some point just before then, Chinese gamers will get world exclusive early access to the Angry Birds Seasons update – before it then rolls out globally.

Rovio is taking China’s 900 million Chinese mobile users very seriously, with an eye to tens of millions of those having the requisite iPhone, Android or Nokia smartphone needed to play the game. In turn, all those players are potential merchandise buyers. When Rovio partnered with a Chinese download site earlier this year, Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka made it clear he was aiming for 100 million downloads for its three Angry Birds games.