For Huang Yu, spring still tastes the way it did in his childhood home in Zhejiang province.
Now 37 and living in Beijing after more than a decade away from the Jiangnan region, he still buys qingtuan every year around Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day. It is less a snack than a seasonal ritual — a way, as he put it, to "take a bite of spring".
Huang said his family has made qingtuan for as long as he can remember. His grandmother, maternal grandmother and mother were all skilled at preparing it. He can still recall the moment the rice balls came steaming fresh out of the pot — savory, fragrant, soft and chewy, filled with flavors chosen to suit children.
Almost every spring in his childhood, when the weather warmed and mugwort grew thick in the fields, lush and green, the adults would take him out on weekends to gather it. After washing the leaves at home, they would mix them with rice flour to make qingtuan.
"Looking back, making qingtuan with my family is still such a happy memory," he said. "Now that I live in Beijing, making them myself takes time and preparation. Many supermarkets sell them freshly steamed, so I usually just buy a few while they're hot."
In recent years, he added, the market has expanded beyond the traditional. "There are new varieties every year, and the online reviews are often good," he said. "Out of curiosity, I bought some to share with my family. After all, life is about trying new things."
Huang's experience reflects the dual role qingtuan plays today. It remains rooted in Qingming tradition, yet continues to evolve as a seasonal product shaped by changing tastes and modern consumption habits.
Once associated with households in Jiangnan, qingtuan has in recent years found a much broader audience nationwide. As spring deepens, the traditional green rice cake — made with glutinous rice and colored with mugwort or other spring plants — has become one of the season's hottest foods, driven by its distinctive taste, strong cultural associations and growing visibility online.
On Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, content tagged with qingtuan has drawn hundreds of millions of views. On Douyin, related videos have surpassed several billion. New flavors, crossover collaborations and even qingtuan-inspired drinks have helped turn the seasonal delicacy into one of spring's most talkedabout foods.
