Natural, additive-free instant coffee is now available at convenience stores at a low price, thanks to the perseverance of a Taipei businessman who believes that good coffee should be affordable.
Wu Chien-wen (吳儉文), a vegetarian who hardly ever drank coffee before 2000, was moved by a cup of freshly made, aromatic coffee offered him by a college friend at the latter's coffee shop.
He was instantly won over and decided to cash in on the ready-to-drink coffee business.
Part of a new breed of people who embrace lifestyles of health and sustainability, the forty-something Wu wanted to sell natural, aromatic instant coffee containing no emulsifiers, thickening agents or other additives at a price much lower than Starbucks -- NT$30 for a cup of instant arabica.
Wu's Formosa Coffee (福爾摩莎咖啡), which has won the hearts and souls of customers with quality and price, is now the top seller at two upscale supermarkets in Taipei.
By joining hands with the Family convenience store chain, Wu has put his Formosa Coffee on the shelves of more than 2,000 Family stores nationwide since the beginning of this year and other convenience stores -- with the exception of 7-Eleven -- are expected to begin offering his coffee shortly.
Wu's reputation and business acumen, however, extend beyond the Taiwanese market.
In April 2005, he presented an Italian-style coffee maker -- which can make a typical 100 percent crema Espresso in minutes -- at a Specialty Coffee Association of America exhibition in Seattle, Washington, and attracted the attention of Erna Knutsen, the matriarch of gourmet coffee in the US.
Knutsen was so impressed that she agreed to let Wu use her name on his machines to make inroads into international markets.
Further confirming his international reputation, Wu was invited to be a judge at a global Cup of Excellence baked beans competition in Honduras last May.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts