At the beginning of spring every year, people want to "bite the spring". In other words, the custom of eating spring cakes has a long history.

It is recorded in Ming Palace Cuisine: "The day before beginning of spring, on Shuntianfu Street outside Dongzhimen, all the dignitaries, ministers and warriors chewed radishes when beginning of spring arrived the next day, which was called' biting spring', and held a banquet for each other and ate spring cakes and vegetables."

This custom can be traced back to the Jin Dynasty and prevailed in the Tang Dynasty. Guan Zhongji said that the Tang people "made spring cakes in spring, wrapped them with Artemisia annua, leeks and Polygonum hydropiper buds" and gave each other gifts to welcome the spring. It is also recorded that the shepherd's purse spring cake in the court of the Song Dynasty is "green and red silk, golden rooster and jade swallow, extremely exquisite, each worth ten thousand yuan."