Hu Rongquan

Hu Rongquan was founded in 1911 by the brothers Hu Rongshun and Hu Jiangquan. In the late Qing they had hawked Chaozhou snacks from a stall; later they pooled money to open a shop on Taiping Road, each taking a character from his name to form the sign 'Hu Rongquan'. It is now in its fourth generation.

The house is known for its own inventions — ya-mu-nian dumplings, spring rolls and plain white cakes are its signatures. For more than a century it has stood quietly on Taiping Road as one of the old town's best-known shops, its name almost a byword for Chaozhou snacks.

Ya-mu-nian are Chaozhou's distinctive glutinous-rice dumplings, named for their duck-egg shape, filled with mung bean, red bean or taro paste and floated in a light sweet syrup; the spring rolls wrap a savoury filling in thin pastry fried until crisp. Both are made by hand, their timing and fillings handed down across generations.

It is a celebrated century-old Chaozhou house and a locally recognized time-honored shop, but does not appear on the official national Time-Honored Brand registry.