Like any given day in her past 10-year coffee career, Liu Fu-mei (劉富美) on a normal Saturday afternoon was making coffee using siphon brewers to serve customers in Gukeng (古坑) Township, Yunlin County.
However, this shopkeeper at Barden Coffee (巴登咖啡) was not brewing coffee imported from just any coffee-growing place, like Columbia or Indonesia, but the Arabica coffee grown locally in Taiwan.
"Unknown to even most natives, Taiwan actually grows coffee beans," said Barden's owner Chang Lai-en (張萊恩), who recalled when he was a child his father and other local coffee farmers planted the trees in Gukeng's Hobaoshan (荷苞山) region, also nicknamed 'Coffee Hill.'
"When the coffee matures, you can see the mountain covered with beautiful ruby-red beans," 50-year-old Chang said.
The history of coffee production in Taiwan dates back to the Qing Dynasty in the 1880s, when a British businessman for Tait & Co brought several nursery coffee plants to be grown in what was then Taipei County, but on a very small scale.
The golden age of the nation's coffee industry started in 1902, when the colonial Japanese government decided to develop this lucrative crop, mainly in Gukeng, which had suitable soil and a subtropical climate. More than 1,000 hectares of coffee were planted at the time, of which Gukeng alone made up more than 700 hectares.
Apart from supporting the development of the coffee industry, Japanese rulers also set up factories to process, grind and roast the beans, and established distribution channels to ship the coffee back to Japan. Taiwan became the capital of coffee production in the Ear East at the time.
The good old days, however, did not last long. Following the end of the Japanese 50 year-rule in 1945, coffee producers faced a disruption in export ties with Japan, while domestically they were in a very awkward position to produce coffee with only a very limited market for their crops. Coffee production slowed, while other crops, such as green oranges and bamboo shoots, continued to thrive.
As a pioneer in revitalizating the industry, Chang started a coffee venture in 1984 but sustained years of slow growth. Today, he has over 10 Barden outlets across the nation and his store is known for the rare and more pricey "Taiwan Coffee" made from beans which Chang has grown, harvested and baked himself for over 20 years. He admitted that it was not an easy road, with the way paved for him.
"Taiwan was a desert of coffee culture at that time," he said.
But things changed after a meeting with Hsieh Shu-ya (
With Chang's assistance, Hsieh tried a new strategy: the launch of a "Taiwan Coffee Festival" in 2003, designed to raise the visibility of the rural township, and to put a spotlight on the industry.
Last year, the 50-day Taiwan Coffee Festival drew over a million tourists and infused NT$1 billion into the local economy -- ? more than three times the amount made in 2003 (NT$300 million).
Hsieh said she expected to see a similar or an even greater response to this year's festival, which is slated to kick off on Sept. 30 and run through the end of November.
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