Zhang Shunxing

Zhang Shunxing was founded in 1882 in the late Qing dynasty by the Hefei native Zhang Wenshao, at first a tobacco shop before turning to cakes, pastries and roasted snacks; in 1906 his uncle Zhang Zikai raised funds to expand it into a celebrated century-old pastry house.

Zhang Shunxing is best known for Hefei's "four great sweets"—sesame cake, baked cake, cunjin toffee and baiqie nut block—with a folk rhyme that runs "sweet and fragrant on the tongue, for pastries find the Zhang family," a shared festival memory for generations of locals.

Its pastries follow traditional handcraft: the sesame cake is thickly coated with sesame over a sweet filling; the baked cake is light and crumbly; cunjin toffee is crisp and golden; baiqie sets sesame in a brittle sugar block, fragrant but not cloying. The four together are Hefei's great sweets and a model of Luzhou pastry craft.

Zhang Shunxing was named a China Time-Honoured Brand by the Ministry of Internal Trade in the 1990s and held an Anhui Time-Honoured Brand title, but did not pass the Ministry of Commerce's September 2023 review and was removed from the national register.