Located in Breeze Taipei Station (微風台北車站), ZeZe (tel: (02) 2389-9872), which opened last month, advertises itself as a “matcha tea specialty store.” Its menu of lattes, bubble teas, ice cream and cakes would probably make tea traditionalists scream, but the sweets do a good job of highlighting the smooth, robust and very slightly bitter flavor of matcha, or finely ground green tea.
The store’s best-selling drink is its cherry pearl tea (櫻花珍珠抹茶拿鐵, NT$105 for a medium cup), which is a matcha latte with pink tapioca pearls. Unlike green tea lattes sold in many other drink stores, ZeZe’s version has very little sugar, which allows the matcha to shine. The pink tapioca pearls actually have a hint of rosewater, instead of cherry flavoring, which makes it a surprising — but successful — complement to the tea. The drink tastes great with the matcha dainagon red bean Swiss roll (抹茶大納言紅豆瑞士捲, NT$80).
ZeZe also sells matcha-flavored candy and cookies, which make a good emergency gift idea if you are in a hurry to catch a train or bus. The company’s matcha chocolate crunch (抹茶脆餅, NT$99), a puffed rice ball covered in matcha chocolate, is especially tasty.
Photo: Catherine Shu, Taipei Times
Climate change, political headwinds and diverging market dynamics around the world have pushed coffee prices to fresh records, jacking up the cost of your everyday brew or a barista’s signature macchiato. While the current hot streak may calm down in the coming months, experts and industry insiders expect volatility will remain the watchword, giving little visibility for producers — two-thirds of whom farm parcels of less than one hectare. METEORIC RISE The price of arabica beans listed in New York surged by 90 percent last year, smashing on Dec. 10 a record dating from 1977 — US$3.48 per pound. Robusta prices have
A dozen excited 10-year-olds are bouncing in their chairs. The small classroom’s walls are lined with racks of wetsuits and water equipment, and decorated with posters of turtles. But the students’ eyes are trained on their teacher, Tseng Ching-ming, describing the currents and sea conditions at nearby Banana Bay, where they’ll soon be going. “Today you have one mission: to take off your equipment and float in the water,” he says. Some of the kids grin, nervously. They don’t know it, but the students from Kenting-Eluan elementary school on Taiwan’s southernmost point, are rare among their peers and predecessors. Despite most of
The resignation of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) co-founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) as party chair on Jan. 1 has led to an interesting battle between two leading party figures, Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如). For years the party has been a one-man show, but with Ko being held incommunicado while on trial for corruption, the new chair’s leadership could be make or break for the young party. Not only are the two very different in style, their backgrounds are very different. Tsai is a co-founder of the TPP and has been with Ko from the very beginning. Huang has
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
RSS