Welcome to my geek hobby: tea. I’m not so much a connoisseur or expert as a traveler who likes to visit tea-producing regions and take home some fine leaves to sip on and bring back memories of my trips. Below I provide some of the most comprehensive guides available on Taiwanese teas and tea destinations in Taiwan.
Dadaocheng (大稻埕) is undoubtedly one of Taipei’s most compelling neighborhoods and best places to explore on foot. While Wanhua, the historical Old City to the south, is a magnet for tourists, serious history, food & culture fans can’t miss Dadaocheng. Twatutia, as Dadaocheng is pronounced in the Hokkien (Taiwanese) language, was once the second largest …
I’ll be covering a lot in this article, including varieties of Taiwanese tea, how to order tea from Taiwan, where to buy tea in Taipei and Taiwan, Taipei tea houses, how to brew Taiwanese tea, tea tours in Taipei, and tea-related attractions around Taiwan. Get a pencil and notepad ready! I’ve been living in Taiwan …
Luye is a gorgeous, rural town in Taitung county, in the southeast corner of Taiwan. It is one of my favorite places to stay in Taitung county (see my Taitung guide and other things to do in Taitung). Luye is famous for the International Taitung Hot Air Balloon Festival, one of the most visually impressive …
Jiufen (九份 or Jioufen), a mountaintop former gold mining town in New Taipei City on the northeast coast of Taiwan, is one of the most popular day trips from Taipei. Visitors and people who live in Taipei flock to Jiufen Old Street because it encapsulates the best of Taiwan in one small package: rich history, …
When it comes to Taiwanese tea, oolongs like Alishan High Mountain Tea, Dong Ding, and Oriental Beauty are internationally renowned, but fewer people are aware that the country also produces some excellent black teas. While many of Taiwan’s tea growing regions do produce a limited amount of black tea, Sun Moon Lake is practically synonymous …
Taiwan’s oolong teas are so good that they have been described as the “champagne of tea.” In recent decades, Alishan High Mountain tea has stood out from the crowd as the most sought after of Taiwan’s impressive array of teas. In fact, my (Taiwanese) father-in-law, an avid tea drinker, turns his nose up at anything …
When most people think of tea in Thailand, they envision sweet, milky, bizarrely orange-colored “Thai iced tea.” But there’s more to Thai tea than that. Curious to learn more, and wanting to move beyond this website’s usual focus on tea in Taiwan, I asked my friend John Bickel, prolific tea blogger at Tea in the …
Yingge, Taiwan is the country’s undisputed center of pottery and ceramics, and one of the most interesting day trips from Taipei for anyone interested in ceramics and the arts. Taiwanese ceramics range from perfect renditions of ancient Chinese styles to creative, modern innovations. For a country that is one of the world’s great producers of …
After I wrote an article introducing tea in Taiwan in 2016, I was contacted by representatives from several Taiwanese tea-related companies and organizations. One of these was Sam, one of three permanent residents at Global Tea Hut (國際茶亭)’s headquarters Tea Sage Hut (通聖亭) in Miaoli (苗栗), a small county capital in Central-Western Taiwan. At first …
In order to put one of my new favorite oolong/wulong teas, Ai-Want Formosa Tea‘s 2015 Winter Dong Ding oonlong tea, to the ultimate test, I’ve decided to take extreme measures. I am going to carry out a trial on the pickiest, most captious food and drink critic that I know: my Taiwanese father-in-law. You’ll have …
