Li Shizhen, a great pharmacologist in the Ming Dynasty, wrote in the twenty-fifth volume of Compendium of Materia Medica, "The method of tofu began with Huai Wang Liu An in the Southern Han Dynasty."

In the Tang Dynasty, after Tianbao 10 (AD 757) and Jian Zhen traveled to Japan, tofu technology was introduced to Japan, so the tofu industry in Japan always regarded Jian Zhen as the founder of tofu production.