What exactly is azuki?
Azuki is a small red bean from East Asia, and the backbone of much of Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese pastry. Cooked and sweetened, it becomes that tender, fragrant red bean filling many people know without ever naming. At L'Infini Café, it's the most iconic filling inside our 车轮饼 (chē lún bǐng), the Taiwanese wheel cakes that are crispy outside, soft inside, and always served hot.
What is the tsubu-an texture?
There are two main styles of azuki paste. Koshi-an is smooth and strained, with the skins removed. Tsubu-an, the one we make, keeps the beans whole: you feel each bean, its delicate skin, its soft centre. It's a more rustic, more honest texture — a reminder that you're eating a real bean, not an anonymous purée. The result is less sweet, deeper in flavour, and pleasantly chewy.
Why does slow-simmering for hours matter?
Good azuki can't be rushed. We simmer our beans slowly, for hours, until they turn tender without falling apart. This long, gentle cook lets the bean absorb water steadily, keep its skin intact, and develop its natural, lightly roasted aroma. Sugar is added gradually, near the end, so the beans stay whole and glossy rather than collapsing into mush. That patient time — which no shortcut can replace — is exactly what gives our azuki its recognisable tsubu-an texture.
Why is house-made better than industrial paste?
Most places buy a ready-to-use industrial red bean paste: very sweet, uniform, often stiffened with additives and heavy syrup. At L'Infini Café, everything is fait maison — made in house. Our wheel cake batter is mixed fresh every morning, with no industrial premix, and our azuki is slow-simmered from dried beans in our own kitchen. That control lets us dial in the sugar, the texture and the freshness. You taste the bean, not the sugar. It's a difference you notice from the first bite, when the golden shell gives way to a still-warm tsubu-an centre.
Where can you try our azuki in Paris?
Our azuki 车轮饼 is waiting for you at 3 Rue de Montmorency, 75003 Paris, in the heart of Le Marais (Métro Arts et Métiers, lines 3 and 11, or Rambuteau, line 11). We're open Tuesday to Sunday, 12pm to 8pm, closed on Monday. Founded in 2023 by two Chinese founders, L'Infini Café brings together Taiwanese street food, specialty coffee, matcha and asian-fusion drinks. Azuki is our classic, but if you want to branch out, custard, matcha, black sesame and taro are all calling. L'amour peut durer pour l'infini — and so can a really good red bean.