Annie Wang: Founder of Annie’s T Cakes
Annie Wang grew up enjoying Chinese food with her family, but when she transitioned to a vegetarian diet nearly ten years ago, she had to adjust the types of Chinese food she was able to eat. At home, her mom cooked vegetarian-friendly Chinese food, but in public, Annie had difficulty finding Chinese food she could eat. She decided to create her own solution and build a community for people looking for vegetarian-friendly, Chinese food. She created Annie’s T Cakes, a vegan Chinese bakery with a mission to create a more just and sustainable food system.
I spoke with Annie about her involvement with Asian American advocacy, how she became interested in food tech, and the lessons and challenges she’s learned from starting Annie’s T Cakes.
Photo courtesy of Annie Wang
Rebecca: Can you start by telling me how your parents came to the United States?
Annie: My parents met in the northwestern region of China (Xinjiang Province) while my dad was in medical school for cardiology and my mom was in nursing school. They got married in the 1980s and moved to the US together. They originally moved to New York, because we already had family there and it made things easier. I was born in New York with my older brother, and most of my dad’s side of the family is still in New York.
Rebecca: Can you share about your upbringing, especially as it relates to your Asian American identity?
Annie: Growing up, my brother and I lived with my dad, moving around every three years to a different state. I’ve lived in New York, Texas, Illinois, Arkansas, Maryland, and now California. Each time we moved there were fewer Asians and the towns got smaller; they were the types of towns where people had all grown up with one other.
My dad recently told me that he didn’t want me to be confused about my identity growing up, so he’d tell me I’m American and made it a point to speak to me and my brother in English. I can see from his point of view why it might make sense to focus on assimilation. A lot of parents think if they speak Mandarin to us, we won’t know how to speak English as well. My dad also wanted to minimize any internal turmoil I might have about which country I should support if there was ever a major international conflict.
Rebecca: When you were growing up, how did you feel about being Asian American?
Annie: Since living in Oakland, I’ve been exposed to so many more touchpoints to learn about Asian American history and my own identity. Asian Americans who grew up here seem more aware of what their identity means to them, since they grew up around people like them. When I was growing up, I wasn’t embarrassed to be Asian, but I didn’t have a frame of reference to talk about how my identity impacted me. I often felt like the odd one out, but I never knew why.
When I lived in Arkansas, people there would remind me daily that I was Asian through offhand comments on my race or outright racist remarks. Someone on my bus would literally call me china cochina or “stinky Chinese” in Spanish everyday on the way home. I mainly ignored it because I wasn’t as outspoken as I am today, and it was easier to ignore it. I don’t feel that way now. I think it’s important for anyone to have a more well-rounded frame of reference and exposure to cultural touchpoints to understand their own identity, especially when they live in places where there aren’t a lot of people with their same cultural experience.
Rebecca: How has your relationship with your Asian American identity evolved as you’ve gotten older?
Annie: Even though the term “Asian American” has its issues, part of me loves the term, because of the potential to bring everyone under this collective community umbrella. In the past eight years, I've had so many more resources to learn about Asian American history and been able to have more discussions with Asian Americans about their own experiences. That’s been really transformative, especially when I talk with people who think differently than I do.
Through college and into the present day, I’ve been involved in Asian American advocacy, and it's become really a big part of everything that I do. I first got involved in this advocacy work during college when I was fortunate enough to cross paths with our university’s Vietnamese Student Association. The friends I made there were all pretty outspoken and interested in topics like our roles as Asian Americans in supporting other communities.
During college, I also started an Asian American dialogue group where we would meet weekly and discuss Asian American history to collectively learn together. After college, wherever I went, I always got involved in Asian American advocacy. I met one of my closest friends when I was in Beijing right after college. He has a family member who has been really pivotal in the Asian American movement, so he started a group in Beijing. When I got to Oakland, I wanted to get more involved in the community. I was recruited into and served as a Team Manager for Project by Project, a volunteer-run organization that raises money for Asian American nonprofits in the area. In that role I worked with a team to put on a 500+ attendee charity benefit and raised $90k for local AAPI nonprofits. I was also the Director of Community Partnerships for Hate is a Virus.
For now, I’m focusing on my business, but I continue to make it a point to support and work with Asian American leaders who have been social advocates for years. I’m always looking for ways to continue helping the community through Annie’s T Cakes and beyond. In recent months, that’s looked like donating a portion of my proceeds to organizations like AAPI Women Lead, APEN, and Good Good Eatz.
Rebecca: How has the recent uptick in hate crimes against Asian Americans made you reflect or think about your identity?
Annie: I feel so many different emotions, especially anger, grief, and fatigue. But it’s also been inspiring to see the community come together. Solidarity work has been happening around us for so long, but most of it happens in the background and goes unnoticed. The overarching narrative often put in place by the media pits Asian Americans against different races, especially Black people. I’m not saying that animosity and distrust doesn’t exist, but there have been so many people trying to build bridges and form relationships between the Asian and Black communities. I wish that was more known to the general public.
I was pretty involved in that work right after the tragedy in Atlanta happened this year, and it showed me that this work can be really exhausting and you don’t always have a lot of time to grieve. That experience gave me more perspective on what on-the-ground advocacy work looks like. My mom is a Health and Human Services Officer and a registered nurse, and she was recently deployed to Texas. My gut reaction was to wonder if she’ll be okay there, because I’m nervous she might be attacked.
Rebecca: Can you tell me about how you got the idea to start Annie's T Cakes?
Annie: I’ve been vegetarian for almost a decade and recently started transitioning towards a vegan diet. Throughout all these years, I’ve missed eating food that I grew up eating in restaurants or at home with my family. The lack of plant-based options was always most apparent when I went to dim sum, because everything has meat in it. I’d always have to order off the menu and get something that wasn’t dim sum. I’m pretty lucky though, because whenever I would visit my mom she would be supportive and cook Chinese food that doesn’t have meat in it. Growing up, I’d help my mom cook, so I was able to learn to cook Chinese food for myself as well. Vegetarian-friendly Chinese food isn’t the most popular or widespread, but it definitely exists.
That being said, there are definitely a lot of things that I miss eating that don’t have a vegetarian-friendly replacement. I’d been trying to find the products to replace those foods and relive those food memories, but I could never find something that brought me back to my childhood. I’ve wanted to start something like Annie’s T Cakes for a few years, so that I could make my own plant-based Chinese food options. I also wanted to build a community for people looking for these types of foods, especially since more people are transitioning to plant-based diets. The reception has been really warm so far, and I’m so grateful for people across the country who have been reaching out and asking about how they can support. Unfortunately I can’t ship yet, but it’s been an uplifting and exciting time.
Photo courtesy of Annie Wang
Rebecca: What have been some of the challenges so far in starting Annie’s T Cakes?
Annie: I’ve worked at different food tech companies previously, so I’ve had some insight into what it looks like to run a business. But actually starting a business is completely different. On one of the earliest calls I had with a food entrepreneur, I didn’t even know where to begin asking her questions. There’s always a lot to do, but sometimes you don’t have visibility into what you should be doing because you haven’t been exposed to it yet. Entrepreneurship can be really lonely and confusing, and the most challenging thing can be knowing what to do and where to start. I’m lucky to have friends who run their own businesses, so I’ve been able to ask them for guidance when I’m feeling lost about what I should prioritize.
Rebecca: How did you initially become interested in the food industry?
Annie: In 2016, I worked in Beijing for a year at the National Resources Defense Council through a fellowship program. While I was there, I was also a part-time journalist, and one of the first interviews I did was with a startup trying to 3D print food. I thought it was crazy that they could do that. Throughout my year in Beijing, there were other food incubators popping up, and I even met someone who was big in advocating for organic farming. I started learning about the growing food tech scene in the Bay Area (e.g., companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat) and started connecting the dots more between the possibilities for positively impacting the climate through food. It’s something people can integrate into their daily habits and feels more accessible. When I moved to the Bay Area, I worked hard to get my foot in the door and have been fortunate to work in marketing for a couple food tech companies - one makes fruit protein sweeteners that are almost zero calorie replacements for sugar and chemical sweeteners and another company makes whiskey and spirits in the lab.
Rebecca: Did you always know you wanted to start a business?
Annie: I had the idea when I first moved to the Bay Area in 2017, but at the time I wanted to work at a food tech startup first. Then last year, I was laid off, along with half of my marketing team. After the layoffs, I realized that nothing is for certain, not even a full-time job. Anything can happen and so I thought, why not pursue my own dreams?
Rebecca: What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from working on Annie’s T Cakes so far?
Annie: I've had to let go of the idea that things have to be perfect before I put them out. I don't even realize I'm doing it, but sometimes I’ll ideate on something for a long time before I execute on it. Breaking out of that mindset has been challenging, because when I think I’m just trying to plan, I’m actually trying to avoid failure. In some ways I’m looking forward to the first failure because it’ll show me that I’ve broken out of this habit.
I also think it’s really special to bring forward something that serves the community. There aren’t a lot of brands right now that focus on Asian Americans, but being part of that growth of people and companies supporting this community is wonderful.
Rebecca: How did you decide to start with pineapple cakes?
Annie: Overall it was a combination of working within the restrictions of a food license and also thinking about which foods I haven’t had for a while, but would like to enjoy again.
There’s something called a cottage food license that allows people to sell out of their home kitchen. There are certain restrictions with it, like you can’t sell things that need to be refrigerated. I had been working on a different recipe originally, but it required refrigeration. I had to think about other food that wouldn’t require refrigeration and one day, I remembered how much I loved eating Taiwanese pineapple cakes as a kid. I tried making them and also realized that since pineapple cakes don’t need to rise, I could make them gluten free in addition to vegan.
I’ve also been following the growing upcycled food movement, so being able to use an upcycle ingredient (okara) was also a great way to help divert food waste. One of my good friends runs a company in Oakland called Renewal Mill that upcycles okara, and I use their products in the pineapple cakes.
Rebecca: What are your short-term and long-term goals for Annie’s T Cakes?
Annie: In the short term, I want to expand into different retailers and food service accounts in the Bay Area. Right now I’m at Asha Tea House and Mud Lab. In the long term, I’d love to start shipping and selling direct to consumers around the country.