Taizi Tofu 太子豆腐

Taizi Tofu (太子豆腐) is hand-made bean curd from Taizi town (太子镇) in Huangshi (黄石), in the part of the city run as the Development Zone and Tieshan District (开发区·铁山区). It is on the Huangshi municipal intangible-heritage list, carries a national geographical-indication certification mark, and is made in small wrapped blocks that hold together through long cooking.

How it is made

Local makers work from spring water that rises from deep rock in Fuzi Mountain (父子山) and a local soybean called liuyuebao (六月爆), which the deputy head of the Taizi town agriculture service centre describes as plump and high in protein. The process runs to more than ten hand steps: soaking, grinding, straining, boiling the soy milk, setting it and pressing. Makers call their method 'four waters working together': spring water for soaking the beans, gypsum water for setting the curd, spring water for boiling the milk, and spring water to hold the finished tofu for storage and transport. The curd is wrapped and pressed in small blocks, and Xinhua singles out this setting and wrapped-pressing technique as what makes the tofu distinctive.

Flavour and texture

According to the Huangshi Daily, the spring water gives the tofu a clean sweetness, and the small-block wrapping keeps it from breaking up however long it cooks, porous inside and tender outside. At the Hubei Agricultural Expo, as the Huangshi Daily reported in December 2025, visitors lined up for blocks that quivered when lifted with chopsticks.

How it is eaten

The tofu can be steamed plain to show off its own taste or braised to soak up the sauce. At the Taizi tofu banquet of the town's tofu festival, first held in early 2024, dozens of pan-fried, deep-fried, steamed, boiled and stewed tofu dishes are served. Villagers also fry fresh blocks into puffs called douguo (豆果), and Xinhua reports a local custom of visiting the market and eating tofu from the twelfth lunar month to the New Year to 'catch good fortune'.

Where it comes from

Xinhua gives the tofu more than 1,700 years of history. The local story places its origin in the Three Kingdoms period, when floods and an epidemic struck Yangxin (阳新). Sun Deng (孙登), son of Sun Quan (孙权), caught the illness while visiting the stricken area, and villagers nursed him back to health with tofu made from their own soybeans and water from an old mountain well.