In the 1880s, a D&G family member went to Shanghai in order to study the Chinese market. Instead of opening a shop there, an agreement was made with "Marcel," the local reseller of a famous French patisserie and restaurant located in the French concession on the Nanjing Lu.

From 1886 to 1888, the D&G shop in China sold mostly Pistoles and chocolate bars. We suppose most of Marcel's customers were Europeans living in Shanghai who were reluctant to cut their ties with France. Even so, some must have been pervious to Chinese delicacies, as Marcel introduced a friend dealing in fresh candied ginger and paste who supplied him with ginger made chocolate. D&G soon began manufacturing candied orange, lemon, cedrat, and mandarin orange, coated with dark sugar ("Aiguillettes"), but not yet ginger. So was the case with the ganache.

Then, two ginger products were conceived. The first was a ginger Aiguillette, a pepper flavoured candied ginger imported from Canton called "Le Cantonais" (the Cantonese); the second was a ganache made with a peppered ginger paste called the "Marco Polo," named after the Italian explorer who visited China in the XIII century. At the same time, a Chinese mood was rife in Paris: for Easter, D&G offered new royal blue Easter Egg cases with Chinese-influenced decorations. (Some years before, Emile Guimet, the great Oriental antiques collector, had bequeathed his collection to France.)