Daxi Tofu Pudding, Taoyuan

Daxi Tofu Pudding is a gypsum-set, high-concentration soy milk pudding sold around Daxi Old Street, a small-change dessert extending the district's century-old bean-product tradition. After walking Daxi Old Street and finishing a round of dried tofu, the next move is to find a bowl of tofu pudding and sit down for a rest. Outside long-standing stalls like Lai Mama and Lai Zu Chuan, a few small stools are always set out. The vendor scoops thin layers off the snowy-white pudding, ladles on sugar syrup and peanuts — fifty NT dollars later, your heat and palate are soothed.

Lai Mama Traditional Tofu Pudding was founded in the early 1970s, after the first-generation owner lost her farmland to the construction of Shimen Reservoir and turned to making traditional gypsum-set tofu pudding instead; the shop is now in its third generation with over 50 years of history and has received Taiwan's National Quality Gold Award. Lai Zu Chuan Tofu Pudding is a separate, unrelated long-established shop that operates as a single location with no branches.

What is Daxi Tofu Pudding

Daxi Tofu Pudding is made using traditional gypsum (calcium sulfate) to set a high-concentration soy milk, resulting in silky, fine-textured pudding with a distinct soybean flavor that is not masked by the sugar syrup. The traditional way is hot tofu pudding with ginger-sugar syrup in winter, and cold tofu pudding with peanuts and sugar syrup in summer. Toppings such as taro balls, tapioca pearls, red beans, and mung beans are also available for a more loaded version. The biggest difference from commercially produced tofu pudding is the freshness — scooped to order from a pot — and the solid quality of the soy milk used. This is the quintessential small-change dessert of Daxi's bean-product culture.

Why Daxi? The context is the same as Daxi's century-old dried tofu culture. The upstream Dahan River water quality suits bean-product making, and the area's cluster of dried tofu shops naturally extended to tofu pudding, soy milk, firm tofu, and tofu skin as Old Street staples. Lai Mama Traditional Tofu Pudding, Lai Zu Chuan Tofu Pudding, and several other long-established stalls have operated in and around Daxi Old Street for decades, representing the traditional gypsum-set tofu pudding method. This is a collector's-item Taoyuan snack; the experience of browsing the category cluster is central, and individual stall preferences vary by person.

How to Eat It the Local Way

Local Knowledge

Information compiled from Michelin Guide, Taoyuan City Government Tourism Bureau, and large-scale public reviews; sponsored content has been filtered out. Photos will be replaced with channel-exclusive material after Dio's on-site shoot.