Suzhou time-honored candy caizhizhai

Suzhou people, old and young, all know Caizhizhai candy. Caizhizhai Candy Store, located in the east of Guanqian Street, is an old shop with a history of 100 years. In the 9th year of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty (l870), Jin, the founder of Caizhizhai (a native of Henan), bought simple tools such as a sugar cooker, a small copper pot, a bluestone table, scissors and a small amount of candy raw materials with a meager capital of 500 coppers, and set up a stall in front of the original tea shop at No.73 Guanqian Street. At first, we only sold zongzi sugar, and hung a small sugar stall at the entrance of Dongzhu Temple Lane in Du Xuan, where we cooked and cut sugar in public. Because the cut candy looks like zongzi, it is named zongzi candy. According to legend, this sugar-making technology originated in the last years of Wumen Biao Yin, so it is also called Xie.

After more than ten years of operation, Jin has accumulated some capital. In the tenth year of Guangxu (1884), with the assistance of his son Jin, he opened his own shop at No.72 Guanqian Street (a part of Chunyang), producing and selling candy, roasted seeds and nuts and candied fruit. Up to now, No.72 Guanqian Street used to be an antique shop in Caizhizhai, and the original owner and his wife usually had frequent contacts with Jin. After the couple were old and childless, they were going back to their hometown in Ningbo to spend their old age, so they transferred the lease right of the antique shop in that studio to Jin. After Kim moved in, his business was like a duck to water. In addition to producing and selling Soviet-style candies and roasted seeds and nuts, he also added Soviet-style preserves, and his business is booming. But at this time, the store still has no official brand. Customers who come to Qian Jie originally only know that this is an antique shop in Caizhizhai, so it is easy to call each other: go to Caizhizhai to buy sugar. Jin pushed the boat forward and officially designated the store as Caizhizhai. Shortly thereafter, his dentist moved to the next door, and Jin expanded the shop into a medium-sized shop with two bays, leaving the shop affairs to his eldest son Jin.

According to legend, during the Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, when Caizhizhai flourished, Empress Cide fell ill, but after long-term treatment by imperial doctors in the palace, it was ineffective. Suzhou Weaving Bureau sent Cao Cangzhou, a famous Suzhou doctor, to Beijing to feel the pulse of the Empress Dowager. Cao not only prescribed prescriptions, but also presented Fritillaria candy from Caizhizhai with Cixi as an auxiliary medicine. After eating, Fritillaria sugar is listed as a tribute, and Su-style sugar is worth a hundred times. Jin made a brand of dragon-shaped tribute candy carved on a black background and hung it in front of the store, which made him famous from then on. There is a magical saying that Caizhizhai's secret tribute candy can cure the problems of the Empress Dowager in Suzhou.

After collecting the famous saying that Zhi Zhai tribute sugar can cure the queen mother's disease, I took the opportunity to make a big fuss about the publicity trademark. He specially asked the painter to draw a map of Cai Zhi as a trademark. In the design, an old man went up the mountain to collect medicine with crutches. The basket is full of ganoderma lucidum and fairy grass, and another old man hangs a gourd on his shoulder, suggesting that there is a panacea in it, indicating that the candy and candied fruit in Caizhizhai have medicinal effects and can maintain health and longevity if eaten regularly. Since then, the saying that Caizhizhai is a semi-drugstore has spread in Wudi. Suzhou candy with national and local characteristics has also begun to take shape in Suzhou candy industry represented by Caizhizhai. In the thirty-third year of Guangxu (1907), Suzhou Sugar Food (Fruit) Institute was established, and Jin was elected as the duty supervisor.

Caizhizhai has increasingly abundant capital and huge family business. Jin was afraid that future generations would have disputes over the property rights of Caizhizhai, so he made a will before his death, making it clear that his eldest grandson Jin Yian was the manager of Caizhizhai and the owner of Caizhizhai's signboard. After opening its doors, the third Daijin successively opened a branch of Cantonese Cuisine Square, Guangzhizhai and Cuisine Spring in Guanqian Street, a Cantonese Cuisine Square, a Cuisine Zhai Candy Store in Shanghai and a Cuisine Zhai in Changshu. In order to get rich, the competition in business is becoming more and more fierce. 1936 Jin Yian was the chairman of Wuxian Tea Sugar Association. Later, due to the lawsuit between brothers, he spent a lot of money, plus the fire at home and the huge sum taken away by his wife and brother in the branch of Shanghai Cantonese Restaurant. He was deeply traumatized and depressed all day, and later 1942 died.

In the 1920s, Caizhizhai candy and roasted seeds and nuts were famous all over the country. Tourists and Suzhou people should bring some gifts to their relatives and friends when they go out. Foreign missionaries in Suzhou and foreigners in missionary schools and hospitals also bought some as rare things to return to China. In 1930s, businessmen from Tianjin Port came to the Soviet Union to buy Caizhizhai candy and melon seeds for sale abroad. In the 1940s, Hong Kong Tongshun Bank and Sanyang Bank purchased goods from Shanghai Caizhizhai and continued to distribute them for many years. In 1950s, the foreign trade departments of Shanghai and Suzhou organized the export of Caizhizhai candy in a planned way.

Caizhizhai was set up in the ninth year of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty (1870), which was passed down from generation to generation before liberation. In practice, many famous brand products with national characteristics and Suzhou local characteristics have been created. For example, sweets include pine dumpling candy, rose sauce candy, crisp candy, crisp peach balls, soft pine candy, thin-skinned candy, light sugar, heavy pine candy, light peach candy, almond candy, egg yolk peanut, clear water hawthorn cake and rose sauce. The roasted seeds and nuts include vanilla watermelon seeds, rose watermelon seeds, torreya grandis with salt and pepper, and salt and pepper walnuts. Candied water includes white sugar.

Among them, crisp golden sugar, fragrant light sugar and sweet soft candy are the representatives of Soviet-style candy, and pine nuts are beneficial to lung and qi. Sweet and crisp peach balls, containing peeled walnuts, have the effect of moistening the lungs and relieving cough. Bright red and transparent clear water hawthorn cake has the effect of lowering blood pressure. Rose sauce has the function of removing blood stasis and relieving pain. Sweet and salty walnut with salt and pepper has the function of invigorating qi and nourishing blood. Delicious white sugar dried bayberry, nine-system plum peel, nine-system dried tangerine peel, etc. It has the function of invigorating the stomach and promoting digestion. Other famous products, such as roasted seeds and nuts, Eichhornia crassipes, roses with thin and kind shells, and creamy watermelon seeds, are all famous for their cleanliness, compactness and fragrance, which have the effects of nourishing body fluids and moistening intestines.

Caizhizhai is characterized by a front shop and a back shop. Its advantages are strong adaptability, safe eating and fresh products. Customers can often buy candy and melon seeds that have not been baked for a long time. Caizhizhai has a strict system from material selection to production. Raw materials are purchased from top fruit accessories in famous and famous producing areas, and the goods are screened and picked, graded, meet the requirements of materials, maintain color, fragrance and not deteriorate; The feeding production technology is exquisite, such as the pulp extraction method of Ming goods candy and the artificial sanding method of sand goods candy, which ensures the high quality and delicious taste of the products.

After liberation, as early as 1953, Caizhizhai Store established a party branch, which strengthened the internal management of the enterprise, promoted the shopkeeper to accept socialist transformation, and changed the service object from a few people to the public. During 1954, Premier Zhou Enlai attended the Geneva Conference and entertained international friends with crisp, light and soft candy from Caizhizhai. Su-style candy is world-famous. 1958, 200 boxes of candy exported from Caizhizhai; 1959, 50 boxes for export. 1963, Hong Kong came to Caizhizhai to film Two Sisters. From 65438 to 0978, the President of Mexico visited China and ate soft pine candy from Caizhizhai in Suzhou, which was full of praise. During the Cultural Revolution, the gold-lettered signboard of Caizhizhai was smashed, the name of the store was changed to Hongqi Store, and the traditional characteristics of the front store and the back store were also cancelled. After many twists and turns, it was not until the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that the store name and front store and back store were restored at 1979. 1984, building for the expansion of Caizhizhai, with an area of 1020 m2. 1986, a building of 1229 square meters was also built in the back room. A century-old shop has achieved new development.

In recent years, the cheese picking belt has automatically packed Soviet-style candy with a new candy assembly line, and bagged it into cheese picking Zhai pine nut candy, which is printed with Tongzhi's founding, a century-old shop and a picture of cheese picking, and also printed with a congratulatory poem: pine nuts are passed down from generation to generation, sesame blossoms are high, peanuts often bear fruit, and walnuts are harmonious for a hundred years. It not only introduces the traditional Soviet candy in Caizhizhai, but also pays tribute to auspiciousness and harmony, so it is deeply loved by the public.

At the 1996 Shanghai Commodity Fair, the traditional products of Suzhou Caizhizhai, such as zongzi candy, pine nut candy, jujube paste biscuit, sesame crisp, rose melon seeds, preserved plum crisp and marinated tofu, were very popular, and some Shanghai customers praised them repeatedly after tasting them: they were authentic Suzhou Caizhizhai products and tasted good.