Eighteen Wrinkles

The shop began with an apprenticeship. Goubuli buns were founded in 1858 by Gao Guiyou of Xia Zhuang in Wuqing County, and they head the Tianjin three famous snacks. Gao, nicknamed Gouzi, learned the bun trade in three years at a steamed-bun shop on the bank of the South Canal, which is the sort of origin that tells you where the city's food skills were actually transmitted: not in restaurants but in small shops along the water. The name Goubuli, usually rendered as dog ignores, is said to come from his nickname, and it has outlived every other detail of the business.

The shop's movements track the city's commercial geography. In the 1920s, as Tianjin's commercial centre shifted south toward the concessions, the shop moved near Tianxiang Market in the French concession, the site of today's Quanyechang, though the sources note that after the move the ageing management and poor business brought it close to closing. The pattern is the same one that took trade away from Guyi Street: the concession crossings became the retail centre, and the old shops either followed or declined. On 15 March 1956 the state food company opened the Tianjin Goubuli shop at the old Fengzeyuan site on Shandong Road in Heping District.

What makes a Goubuli bun identifiable is a countable feature: each bun has eighteen wrinkles, a standard that turns a pleating technique into a brand mark. The business side is equally documented. The Goubuli Group was formally set up in 1992 as a leading restaurant business of the city, and in 2005 the 147-year-old shop was taken over by the century-old firm Tong Ren Tang for 106 million yuan. English-language sources count it among China's longest established brands. A bun with eighteen wrinkles, sold by a company founded in 1858 to a company founded in 1669, is a neat illustration of how old names are traded in China.