How a moment of homesickness became a mission — and why Olivia's Tanghulu is setting the bar for what tanghulu can be, one crystal skewer at a time, right here in the Bay Area.
Olivia's Tanghulu didn't start as a business. It started with homesickness. Far from the winter markets and quiet kitchens of her childhood in Qingdao, Olivia missed home in ways she couldn't quite put into words. One afternoon, she bought fresh strawberries, boiled sugar, and made tanghulu — the traditional Chinese dessert she grew up loving and never stopped loving. The first crack of the crystal glaze brought her back. In that moment: comfort. Connection. Home.
Olivia brings an unusual background to the dessert world. She holds a PhD in Chemical Physics and an Executive MBA from UC Berkeley Haas, and spent years leading R&D at Impossible Foods — where she worked on some of the most technically complex food innovation projects of the past decade. That precision now shows up in the glaze, the sourcing, and the same-day production standard that defines Olivia's Tanghulu.
What looks like a simple skewer of fruit is actually the result of relentless attention to detail. That's the Olivia's Tanghulu difference.
Credentials That Matter
Olivia's PhD in Chemical Physics, Executive MBA from UC Berkeley Haas, and R&D leadership at Impossible Foods bring unusual authority to the craft. Thickness, temperature, crystallization, and freshness are not guesses here — they're engineered for precision.
The Mission
Tanghulu is one of the great foods of Chinese culture — 800 years old, deeply loved, and still mostly unknown in America. Olivia's Tanghulu exists to give it the treatment it deserves and to build it a real place in American dessert culture. Not a trend, not a novelty — a category. Olivia's is building it, not just selling skewers.
Where We Build
Olivia's Tanghulu is proudly based in the Bay Area and serves thousands of customers across San Francisco, the Peninsula, South Bay, and East Bay through retail partners, pickup and delivery, and catering for companies like Google, Nvidia, OpenAI, and YouTube.
A premium dessert brand still needs principles. These are the ones we refuse to compromise.
I built this brand because I believe tanghulu deserves to be the next great American dessert. Not a trend, not a novelty — a staple. We're still early, but every skewer we send out, every event we cater, and every partnership we build is one more step toward making that happen. Thank you for being part of this.
Order tanghulu for pickup or delivery, book a catering experience for your next event, or just come find us at one of our Bay Area partner locations.