Taiwan’s coffee industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the past two decades, and annual average coffee consumption in Taiwan last year reached 1.8kg per person, exceeding the 1.4kg average per person for tea.
It is possible that this could be an indication that coffee could soon replace tea as Taiwan’s go-to drink.
From the 4.73 hectares of coffee planted in 2001 to the 1,153.21 hectares planted last year, it is apparent that a large number of people are investing in the coffee industry, Taiwan Coffee Laboratory researcher Lin Jen-an (林仁安) said on Tuesday last week, citing statistics provided by the Council of Agriculture.
Photo courtesy of Lion Travel
Most coffee farms that have earned themselves a good reputation are located on mountains 700m above sea level, and many have been repurposed from tea farms, he said.
The frequent interaction between coffee farmers, baristas and roasters gives Taiwan’s coffee industry its competitive edge, as it aims to attract more attention at the Private Collection Auction today.
Lin said that Taiwan is the only place in the world, with the exception of Hawaii, in which there is nearly no distance between production and consumption.
Like the Hawaiian Kona beans, Taiwan’s beans cost more but have excellent taste, which would give Taiwan an edge in making a name for itself in the international gourmet coffee market, he added.
Comparing the quality of Taiwan’s coffee to the Geisha bean produced in Panama’s Hacienda La Esmeralda region, which sells for US$156 per kilogram, Lin said that Taiwan is looking to obtain a good price on its first appearance on the international coffee bidding scene.
At the event, a panel of 26 judges from five countries are scheduled to select nine of the best brews out of 19 entries of Taiwan-grown coffee beans for auctioning, the Alliance of Coffee Excellence said.
The beans selected are then to be auctioned online, with buyers from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the US, New Zealand, Australia and Saudi Arabia doing the bidding, the alliance said.
Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute director Fang Yi-chou (方怡舟) said that the institute has obtained a patent for the first locally cultivated type of coffee, which can be planted in plains and can yeild 1.2 times more beans than current coffee plants.
Fang said that the institute hopes to promote the new bean among local growers soon.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,