It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that Taiwanese love their tea. Despite numerous coffee shops popping up in alleys, tea culture still exists — or at least it’s starting to make a comeback. Entire mountains are devoted to harvesting tea, tea aficionados trek to places like Pinglin (坪林) to sample pouchong tea (包種茶), while homestays at tea plantations are becoming the new rave among young vacationers.
Realizing the importance that tea holds in Taiwanese culture, the organizers at Taipei Walking Tour have started a new English-language tour bringing visitors to an old tea and pastry shop in Dadaocheng (大稻埕), an area which saw its heyday as a thriving commercial port during the late Qing Dynasty. The “Cultural Experience DIY Activity” which will take place on Friday, starts with a visit to Lee’s Cake (李亭香餅舖), where participants will learn how to make their own traditional pastries, and ends with a tea-brewing lesson at Wang Tea (有記名茶), after which they will get to savor their self-made sweet treats and cold brewed tea.
“Nowadays, young people don’t brew tea at home like their parents did,” Sandrine Liao (廖湘婷) from Taipei Walking Tour tells the Taipei Times. “They even like Western-style pastries better than traditional ones and some purchase Western-style cakes as a substitute for traditional events like weddings.”
Photo courtesy of Taipei Walking Tour
Although this tour is slightly different than the other tours they organize because of the DIY aspect, the objective remains the same — to introduce people to a part of Taiwanese history which they might previously have been unaware of.
“We try to take people to places that are really worth a visit,” Liao says.
PIECE OF CAKE AND A CUP OF TEA
Photo courtesy of Taipei Walking Tour
There are many tea and pastry shops in Dadaocheng, but the two shops were chosen because of their long histories and preservation of traditional methods of pastry-making and tea-brewing. Lee’s Cake is run by a fifth-generation pastry maker, while Wang Tea is operated by a third-generation tea brewer. Both establishments are over a hundred years old.
Liao says that “both owners are young and willing to embrace change.”
Seeing that tea has merged with fast food culture — it’s easily available at takeaway joints and convenience stores — Wang Tea decided to open their charcoal-roasting room to the public so that people could appreciate the slow but artful process it takes to roast the perfect tea leaf. While most tea shops use electricity or gas to roast tea leaves, Wang Tea still uses the old charcoal-roasting process on special occasions.
Similarly, Lee’s Cake has modified their flavors and packaging over the years as people’s palates and propensities have changed. In other words, they’ve made mooncakes cool again. During the tour, participants will learn how to make “matchmaking sweets” — pastries that are supposed to bring good fortune to their love lives.
You don’t need to be a good pastry chef to take part in the activity. Apparently, the process is a piece of cake.
“The ingredients are so simple that you wouldn’t believe it — maltose and peanut powder,” Liao says. “We mix everything together, put them into a traditional pastry mold, then knock it out — and voila, you’ve made your own sweets.”
Liao adds that she hopes the tour — which will also include time to peruse the nearby streets — will pique people’s interest in the history of Dadaocheng. While a lot has changed in the past century, places like Wang Tea and Lee’s Cake prove that a delicious slice of cake and a good cup of freshly-brewed tea can weather the test of time.
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