The Golden Croissant: An Accidental Mid-Air Encounter and a Taiwanese Croissant with a Han Pastry Soul

30-second overview: The Sansia golden croissant (金牛角), a well-known souvenir across Taiwan, has an origin story far more interesting than most imagine. It did not come from a European croissant — it was created by Han pastry chef Luo Fu-ching, who was inspired by a "Philippine bread" he encountered on a flight, then returned to Taiwan and adapted it using Chinese pastry-making craft. Its distinctive "hard-shell" texture comes from the repeated pressing to remove air from the dough and the generous application of butter during baking, reflecting early Taiwanese society's pursuit of substantial, filling food. From a neighborhood snack to an old-street specialty, the golden croissant is not merely a taste memory — it is a distillation of Sansia's local culture and commercial development, holding up this small town's distinctive olfactory landmark.

If you walk into Sansia Old Street in New Taipei City, your nose will be occupied by a powerfully assertive milky fragrance before you even see the intricately carved stone pillars of the Qingshui Zushi Temple. That is not the light, elegant scent of a French bakery with its nuanced fermentation notes — it is more direct, richer, and carries hints of oil-pastry caramel. The source of this smell is Sansia's most iconic symbol: the golden croissant.

The Accidental Mid-Air Encounter

Many people assume the golden croissant is a localized version of the French croissant, but in fact its lineage is closer to Southeast Asia. Luo Fu-ching, the founder of Sansia's "Fu Mei Xuan Pastry Shop" (福美軒餅舖), established the shop in 1958, originally starting with wedding cakes.⁷ During a trip, he ate a firm-textured "Philippine bread" on an airplane¹²; other accounts say the inspiration came from eating small pastries while traveling in Australia and New Zealand.⁹ Already a seasoned Han pastry chef, he was struck by the chewiness of this bread — so different from Taiwanese soft bread. Back in Sansia, he did not copy it directly. Instead, he infused the "layer upon layer" logic he used in making Chinese moon cakes and oil pastry into this foreign snack.³

Luo Fu-ching ran the dough through a pressing machine multiple times, completely expelling the air, making the structure extremely dense. In Western baking this is forbidden — it destroys the bread's fluffiness — but in a Han pastry chef's eyes, this was precisely the expression of "substance." In the end, a snack shaped like a horn but with the texture of a hard biscuit emerged quietly from the alleys of Sansia.

Why Is It So "Hard"?

The standard for judging an authentic Sansia golden croissant is not softness, but "crunch" and "fragrance." To achieve this effect, the chef must brush generous amounts of pure butter onto the surface of the bread during baking, so the exterior undergoes something like a frying effect in the oven.⁴

This "hard-shell" approach reflects the aesthetic of early Taiwanese society toward food: must be oily enough, fragrant enough, filling enough. For Sansia people, the two tips of the golden croissant — baked until caramelized and crispy, almost like biscuit — are where the whole bread finds its essence.

From One Shop to One Street's Collective Memory

The golden croissant's fame was not built overnight. For decades it was just a neighborhood snack known only to Sansia locals. It was not until the early 2000s, with the renovation and touristification of Sansia Old Street, that this snack with its powerful olfactory identity officially became known as a "Sansia specialty."⁵ In particular, 2001 saw extensive media coverage that bound "Sansia" and "golden croissant" tightly together.⁸

What followed was fierce brand competition and family infighting. On Sansia Old Street, you can see multiple brands side by side — "Gold Sansia" (金三峽), "Sanxia Yong" (三角湧), "Kang Xi Xuan" (康喜軒) — and there have been multiple legal disputes and naming wars.⁶⁷ This wild-growth process, though carrying commercial smoke and conflict, accidentally led the golden croissant to develop a range of flavors including chocolate, brown sugar, and pineapple bun — turning an originally plain hard bread into an indispensable part of Taiwanese souvenir culture.

Conclusion: Holding Up the Town's Skeleton

The story of the Sansia golden croissant is, at its core, a cultural experiment in "misunderstanding" and "transformation." A Han pastry chef stumbled into taking inspiration from the Philippines, applied Chinese craft, and planted it in the soil of Taiwan. It does not pursue French refinement or Japanese delicacy. Its near-stubbornly firm texture is like the stone pillars of the Qingshui Zushi Temple — heavy, but steadily holding up this small town's cultural weight and olfactory memory.

Next time you bite into that crispy, caramelized tip, remember: you are tasting not just bread, but an accidental legend that began at 30,000 feet in the air and settled in Sansia's alleys over half a century.

Further Reading

• Taiwan Street Food — The golden croissant's position on the map of Taiwanese street food as a regional souvenir
• Sansia Old Street — The cultural landscape where the golden croissant took root (if the entry does not exist, this is a future development direction)
• Taiwan's Pastry Culture — How Han pastry craft DNA entered new-style confectionery
• Taiwan's Souvenir Economy — Old-street touristification × family trademark disputes as a case study in local economy

References