Datong Pressed Tofu 大通茶干
Datong Pressed Tofu is featured among the local specialties of Anhui.
Datong Pressed Tofu (大通茶干) is a bean-curd snack from Datong (大通), an old town in Jiaoqu District (郊区) of Tongling (铜陵), Anhui. It comes as square pieces, and Tongling's culture and tourism office gives it more than 400 years of history.
Flavour and texture
Datong Pressed Tofu is known for a fresh, savoury taste and a chewy bite. It turns up on the dinner table and is also carried around as a snack to eat on the go.
Where it comes from
Tongling's culture and tourism office presents it as one of the city's intangible cultural heritage items and names it with other Tongling foods such as white ginger (白姜), Taiping baked flatbread (太平烧饼) and Shun'an crisp candy (顺安酥糖). A local story holds that the Qianlong Emperor was fond of it. Making it takes a series of elaborate steps.
Datong itself was once called Lanxi (澜溪). A water post station named Datong was set up here in the Tang dynasty, and the place became a formal town in the Northern Song. It backs onto hills and faces the river, and was once counted with Anqing (安庆), Wuhu (芜湖) and Bengbu (蚌埠) among Anhui's 'four great trading ports'. On Lanxi Old Street (澜溪老街), the core of the town, Datong Pressed Tofu and small-mill sesame oil (小磨麻油) are among the local products that make passers-by stop.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.