Chinese pastries come in all shapes, colors, sizes and tastes, and it's not an easy task to categorize the regional sweets or savory treats the same way Western cuisine does.
Original Chinese bakery houses like Daoxiangcun, Xinghualou or Kee Wah Bakery are now considered a time-honored "heritage" of Chinese culinary traditions.
Some bakeries not only sell the well-known biscuits, cakes and tarts, but also deli items like cooked meats or dishes like wontons, dumplings and steamed buns. To see how popular these treats are, just stop by the Xinghualou store on Fuzhou Road on a weekend morning and see how long the lines are.
Pastries are an indispensable part of the Chinese lifestyle. The Chinese cuisine has evolved significantly over the course of history and so have the traditional pastries.
Among the classic bakery labels that still thrive today is Daoxiangcun, the "emperor" of the Chinese pastry kingdom.
There are two Daoxiangcun trademarks in China: the 121-year-old Beijing Daoxiangcun and the 244-year-old Suzhou Daoxiangcun. The two companies are currently involved in court battle after one consumer mistakenly purchased the Suzhou company's products in Beijing this March. Both companies have filed lawsuits for the sole ownership of the name.
But the name Daoxiangcun, which translates into "village with rice fragrance," is also the name of the residence of Li Wan, the elder sister-in-law of Jia Baoyu in Cao Xueqin's novel "Dream of the Red Chamber."
The Suzhou Daoxiangcun originated in 1773 and now specializes in Suzhou-style pastries like mooncakes, victory cakes and sesame cakes with pine nuts and jujube filling. The company sells more than 100 types of traditional food including deli items like smoked fish.
The Beijing Daoxiangcun founded by Guo Yusheng in 1895 sells a wide variety of traditional Chinese pastries and deli food. They are especially known for the "ox tongue" pastry, which is a very flaky cake with sweet and salty sesame paste filling as well as the popular jujube flower pastry and mung bean tart.
In 1970s, both the Suzhou and Beijing Daoxiangcun were struggling and didn't take notice of one another, until Beijing Daoxiangcun applied for the text trademark for dumplings in 1996, which started the controversies.
The fight for the Daoxiangcun trademark continued for over a decade as many consumers cannot tell the difference between the two brands.
The sweet treats
The fillings of Chinese pastries are thicker and denser while Western pastries often incorporate more cream-like fillings.
The most common filling is the red bean paste, which is red beans cooked with sugar until the water evaporates, leaving a dry paste that can be used in buns and cakes. The same method is applied to mung bean, which has a cooler taste.
