Taipei bakery is over the moon!



DATELINE TAIPEI – On the eve of the Mid Autumn Festival, the staff at Taipei’s Kuo Yuan Ye Bakery are working overtime making moon cakes, the traditional gift of the annual three-day festival.

The workers are used to this rush – being the oldest and biggest bakery in Taiwan, Kuo Yuan Ye is the largest supplier for the little round-shaped cakes made with flour, butter and stuffed with fruit or other yummy items.



A chef shows visitors how
to form the moon cakes and
then shows the results.



Since opening in 1867, the bakery has popped billions of moon cakes into their giant ovens. This year alone Kuo Yuan Ye will make 670,000 boxes to feed its 28 stores spread throughout Taiwan – each box consists of between 10 and 12 cakes, by the way.



The family that owns the bakery is one of Taiwan’s most famous and over the company’s 145-year history, they’ve amassed quite a collection of artifacts, which they now showcase in a tiny museum above their main Taipei store.

The collection features the oldest wooden forms used to shape the cakes as well as a beautiful collection of wedding cake boxes and garments – after moon cakes the company’s biggest business centres around the wedding industry. Up until 2010, the company had sold almost 2.4 million wedding boxes.



Brides from Taiwan and Japan choose from elaborate to humble boxes which are filled with cakes and other pastries and exchanged between the bride and groom during the ceremony or to guests. The beautifully decorated boxes cost between $50 and $150 Cdn. and that includes the delicious goodies. Most brides keep mementos from the wedding in the boxes afterwards.



Visiting groups to the bakery can get a lesson in making moon cakes from one of the shop’s best chefs. Afterwards, visitors get to eat what they make while enjoying a cup of traditional oolong tea – the kind Taiwan is most famous.

Moon cakes are very much part of the Chinese culture and now so too is the Kuo Yuan Ye Bakery Museum.

For more information on the bakery, go to www-e01267@kuos.com.tw