[1] Yuan Mei was born in Qiantang (錢塘, in modern Hangzhou), Zhejiang province, to a cultured family who had never before attained high office.

However, in 1748, shortly after being assigned to administer part of Nanjing, he resigned his post and returned to his hometown to pursue his literary interest.

His views on poetry as expressed in the Suíyuán Shīhuà (隨園詩話) stressed the importance of personal feeling and technical perfection.

In his later years, Yuan Mei came to be called "Mister Suiyuan" (Chinese: 隨園先生; pinyin: suíyuán xiānsheng).

Throughout his lifetime, Yuan Mei travelled extensively throughout southern China, visiting Huangshan, Guilin, Tiantai, Wuyi and other famous mountains.

[6][7] The work is classified under the biji fiction genre), but they are anecdotes collected over many years, purporting to be actual events recorded by the author.

[8] The food writer Fuchsia Dunlop has described Yuan as "China’s Brillat-Savarin," [9] and Endymion Wilkinson called him one of the four classical gastronomes.