Egg cracker
NT$45 / pack
Our story
A hundred years at the iron molds
From the 1920s to today: four turning points in a hundred-year-old craft.
- 1926
Founded in the late Taishō era
Two brothers, one name
The brothers Tsai Ching-lien and Tsai Ching-te learned to make Japanese-style butter crackers from a Japanese pastry chef, and named the shop with one character from each of their names: 連 + 得. They opened on Zongye Street, the road that led into the old city from the Qing-era Great North Gate. Today it is called Chong’an Street.
- After the war
When US forces were stationed in Taiwan
A name carved into the molds
After World War II, the second-generation owner, Tsai Tsan, wanted to sell the crackers to the American servicemen stationed in Taiwan, so he carved the shop’s name into the molds in romanized Taiwanese: Lêng tih tông. The mark became the shop’s signature, and a sweet memory for many locals who grew up when food and snacks were scarce.
Tap to stamp the name into a cracker.
- 1993
Closed, then revived
Twelve years without fire
As factory-made snacks took over, handmade crackers struggled, and the shop closed for 12 years. The turn came in 1993, when Tainan held the Zongye Street Cultural Festival to promote local tourism and local historians campaigned to bring old crafts back into view. That same year the third generation, Tsai Wei-chung, gave up a well-paid job in northern Taiwan and came home to take over, so that his father’s craft would not be lost. The old oven was lit again, and the smell of fresh crackers returned to the street.
1993 · Lit again
- Today
The old way, on purpose
Small by choice
The shop still uses the big round oven and hand-operated molds left from the Japanese era. Demand far outstrips what can be made by hand, yet the family has chosen not to expand, keeping production limited so the century-old craft survives intact in Tainan’s old lanes.
The big round oven from the Japanese era. The iron molds are still worked by hand. - Japanese-era round oven
- Hand-operated molds
- Handmade, in small batches
- 2026
One hundred years
Still baked by hand, one mold at a time. NT$45 a pack. Still two per person.
