Tai Zhan Bakery: A butcher’s vegan granddaughter honors family values while creating amazing pastries

At GreenTown Los Altos, we aim to highlight local businesses that are making a difference in their community. Our eating-green lead, Cary Anderson, recently interviewed a local couple who own and run the only 100% plant-based bakery in the area.

Photo by Jen Lo Photography

Wendy Chan and Keith Johnsgard are partners in life and baking. A strong sense of community, family values and a passion for plant-based baking led to the opening of their baking project, Tai Zhan bakery in Saratoga. Prior to opening their store in late 2023, Tai Zhan started in 2018 as a pop-up business. They quickly built an impeccable reputation for quality and variety of Asian-inspired and other baked goods, rivaling any non-plant-based bakery. Honoring Wendy’s family, Tai Zhan was the name of Wendy’s grandparent’s former butcher shop in Hong Kong. While Wendy and Keith juggle second careers and two children, the closeness of family extends to participation by Wendy’s mom and Keith’s brother, who taste-test and help run the bakery.

At her Saratoga bakery, Wendy Chan points out her Hong Kong family storefront, also named Tai Zhan.

With an impressive background in commercial baking, Wendy decided to share her sweet and savory baked recipes, using only plant-based ingredients. On her own and no longer limited to using the standard butter and egg portions that people expect from non-plant-based recipes, Wendy created multiple butter and egg substitutes tailored to each recipe. The result is a more refined, subtle and satisfying baked good than you may find from traditional bakeries.

If you are looking for a slightly less sweet and more artisan take on some of your favorite recipes, Tai Zhan fits the bill. For example, Tai Zhan’s Eggless Tart looks like the egg tart you’ve seen at Chinese bakeries. So, you have that interesting point of reference, but Wendy isn’t trying to mimic the flavor; she’s creating an entirely new taste experience, with the simple goal of making it tasty while touching on nostalgic notes. This approach is a direct contrast to traditional bakeries that attempt to satisfy plant-based customers by substituting off-the-shelf plant-based ingredients with the goal of closely mimicking their non-plant-based product. Nothing is “off the shelf” at Tai Zhan.

Incorporating a true hand-crafted, artisan approach into each recipe, Wendy still “touches the dough” on every baked good to make sure it meets her standard. The recipes are regularly modified to create new flavor and texture profiles so that customers are surprised each week with something new to try. In fact, unlike most bakeries that have 2-3 “greatest hits”, Wendy says their top sellers are the “specials” each Saturday. That said, you can reliably find most of the same treats each week, many of which are artisan takes on Asian pastries, plus Wendy’s take on traditional “western” bakery items such as chocolate chip cookies, pizza focaccia, croissants and cakes.

If you plan to give Tai Zhan a try, plan to come early — there is generally a line waiting to get in when it opens. There’s no seating inside, so plan to take your food home or to enjoy at one of the many coffee shops or outdoor seating areas within walking distance in downtown Saratoga. Tai Zhan is located at 14572 Big Basin Way, Saratoga, CA. Open Friday and Saturday from 11 AM-3 PM. For catering, contact Wendy and Keith via their website portal at taizhanbake.com.

On a recent visit to Tai Zhan, Wendy and Keith shared insights on their journey so far:

Cary Anderson from GreenTown Los Altos, meets Tai Zhan's Wendy Chan and Keith Johnsgard to discuss their plant-based business

What are some of the challenges of baking in a plant-based only environment versus traditional bakeries?

Wendy: After being vegan for 14 years while baking in a commercial environment where certain ingredients were expected to be used for specific baked good, I actually feel I have more freedom than ever. My baking now is more aligned with my beliefs and what I always wanted to do, my creativity more endless, allowing me to explore what creates the best and most interesting result, not necessarily what was expected. For example, in the commercial baking environment, it wasn’t as inventive in that way as we “had” to use eggs and standard dairy butter, whereas now I am free to create more interesting textures and tastes without the expectation that it tastes a certain way.

Do you aim to mimic the traditional baked items from your youth?

Wendy: I definitely started that way. I grew up with Hong Kong pastries and, my family being Cantonese, I’d go back to Hong Kong each summer and enjoy that, so I wanted the nostalgia of eating the treats from my youth. I still want to create things that touch me nostalgically. That said, some people could comment that I don’t create exactly the same pastry they are used to. My pastries won’t have the same flavor that you taste from having dairy butter in a recipe. It’s just different. But for people who have certain allergies, I’m able to give them that nostalgia and connect with the tradition of some recipes that have existed for many generations. I’ve also created different treats that push past that nostalgia and combine things that I love such as jellies and cakes that I had not done before. My parents are the first taste testers. They aren’t vegan. The pastries must pass the test that anyone would like it, no matter what their diet is.

Now that you have a “brick and mortar” store and recently started to be open two days a week, what are your goals for the business?

Wendy: In terms of goals, our mission is that we still want to just create extraordinary treats for everyone who can’t go to a traditional bakery while also inspiring people to question the current life patterns of consumption. We hope to get people to consider that it’s possible that they don’t need to consume milk and eggs and it will taste good and become something they can do at home.

Keith: Although we’d been doing popups, working on this and dreaming for a long time, we found the opportunity to open the Saratoga store just by the good fortune of driving by it regularly and inquiring about the open space. At that time, we were at a crossroads about what to do with the business. The store became an organic growth of what we had been doing, and we had so much support from our customers to take this next step. We started just opening on Saturday, but we’d quickly sell out. We can only produce so much each day in this kitchen, so we recently opened on Friday too. We have small kids who we prioritize, and part-time jobs too, so adding Friday made the most sense for us.

What are your most popular pastries?

Wendy: It varies from week to week. We make seasonal pastries and each week, depending on my whim from week to week, I look to create specials for Saturday, and the specials are the most popular. Right now, we have strawberry cream that’s popular. Our passion whip with fresh sliced mango is really popular right now, but it could be totally different from week to week.

From where do you draw inspiration for your baking?

Keith: At this point, Wendy can look at any non-plant-based recipe and quickly understand how to use it for inspiration and calculate how she would convert to plant-based and modify it to her liking. It’s really amazing.

Wendy: I spend time at the library with my sons, and I’ll research a ton of books and online, a combination of Asian and other countries' recipes, just constantly looking for inspiration. I really draw inspiration from everywhere.

Do you have a target demographic, given that plant-based businesses can be seen as “niche”?

Wendy: No. We are creators and bakers, not businesspeople. We are just here to create great food, and what is aligned with our values. We don’t push our values on other people; we hope to simply provide an offering people will enjoy.