A sun cake (太陽餅, taiyang bing) is a round, flaky pastry with a thin, crumbly crust and a soft malt sugar filling. The Taichung City Government's tourism site calls it almost a synonym for Taichung, and lists it among the city's specialty gifts. It started as a malt cake (麥芽餅) and took its name from a bakery called Tai Yang Tang (太陽堂), on Ziyou Road in the old center. Buy a box on Ziyou Road, or visit the Taiwan Museum of Suncake near Taichung Station.
Where the sun cake came from
The Liberty Times tells the best-documented version. Lin Shao-sung (林紹崧) opened Tai Yang Tang in 1953, first at the corner of Jiguang Street and Minquan Road, then on Ziyou Road after a fire. He hired a baker named Wei Ching-hai (魏清海), known as Ah Ming Shih (阿明師), because he was good at malt cakes. Lin then renamed the malt cake after his shop: the sun cake. As the paper put it, "a sun cake is really a malt cake."
Other versions exist. UDN, looking back through its archives in 2024, found a 1992 report that tied the name to a sunflower logo and to malt cakes sold on trains, and called the question of the true inventor still open. Wei Ching-hai's family has long presented him as the inventor, and his son and grandson carried on the family business, the Taipei Times reported. UDN also wrote that Ah Ming Shih trained more than a hundred sun cake bakers, which is part of why so many shops across Taichung carry the Tai Yang Tang name.
The original Tai Yang Tang, at 23 Ziyou Road Section 2, with a blue sign and a sunflower mosaic by the painter Yen Shui-long (顏水龍), closed in May 2012 when its elderly owner had no one to hand it on to. Before he died that August, he licensed the name to be used at a new location, the Liberty Times reported.
What you are buying
- The classic: layers of flaky pastry around a maltose filling. Early sun cakes were made by hand with a malt sugar filling; today many shops make other flavors too, the city tourism site notes.
- How many shops: a lot. A city official told the Taipei Times in 2014 that more than 500 shops sell sun cakes and related pastries in Greater Taichung, in a market said to be worth more than NT$1 billion a year.
Where to go
Ziyou Road, the sun cake street
- Where Ziyou Road Section 2 (自由路二段), Central District
- Getting there Taxi from Taichung Station
Ziyou Road (自由路二段) is where it began. In its 2024 look back, UDN described four shops side by side at Nos. 21, 23, 25 and 27, each with its own sign and each claiming to be the old original, and noted that Tai Yang Tang itself has since moved from No. 23. It is still the street to walk if you want to compare boxes. Shops change often, so check each one on Google Maps before you go.
Taiwan Museum of Suncake
- Hours Daily, 09:00 to 17:30
- Address 145, Section 1, Taiwan Boulevard, Central District
- Phone 04-2229-5559
- Getting there Walk or taxi from Taichung Station
The Taiwan Museum of Suncake (全安堂台灣太陽餅博物館) has an exhibition space and a canteen inside Chuan An Tang (全安堂), a century-old Japanese-era building that was first a pharmacy selling imported medicine. It is the place to see where the pastry fits in Taichung's story.
Miyahara
Miyahara, the restored 1927 eye clinic near Taichung Station, is known for its ice cream, chocolates and pastries, and makes an easy second stop for sweet gifts.
→ Miyahara
Good to know: UDN counted two or three hundred shops in Taichung using the Tai Yang Tang (太陽堂) name, so a sign with those characters does not mean you have found the original. Taste and choose.
→ What to eat in Taichung → Central Taichung → Shopping in Taichung
Sources
Tai Yang Tang's founding, Wei Ching-hai, the renaming and the 2012 closure: Liberty Times (13 May 2012) and Liberty Times (14 August 2012). The other origin stories and the Ziyou Road shops: UDN (10 May 2024). Wei Ching-hai's family and the size of the market: Taipei Times (3 January 2014). What a sun cake is: Taichung Tourism, Taichung specialties. The museum's hours, address and building: Taichung Tourism, Taiwan Museum of Suncake.
Checked October 2026.