The Tea Research and Extension Station is next month to establish a “beverage center” to develop new methods for creating tea-based mixed drinks in response to the expanding popularity of the hand-shaken beverage industry.
“Hopefully, technical investment from the government can help the private sector further develop the market to form a ‘national tea team,’” Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said on Saturday of the new center.
Taiwan’s tea-based beverage industry is renowned worldwide, providing a valuable and growing export market for farmers.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
In the first 10 months of this year, exports of tea and related products rose 30 percent year-on-year, Ministry of Economic Affairs data show.
Drink stores comprise a significant industry, with sales exceeding NT$58 billion (US$2.09 billion) last year, an 80 percent rise over the past decade.
About 1.02 billion hand-shaken drinks are sold every year in Taiwan, working out to at least 43 cups per person or one every week.
Photo: Bloomberg
Taiwanese tea drinks have changed dramatically over the years, station director Su Tsung-chen (蘇宗振) said.
“It used to be a tea culture, but now it is a tea drink culture,” he said.
To meet demand from an increasing number of tea shops and younger tea drinkers, the station decided to create the beverage center to further expand the growing industry, Su said.
The center would have five to seven people collaborating with private operators to develop drinks using local crops, he said.
As tea is the base for all of the beverages, the center is to research tea blending techniques along with the best ratios for pairing additives such as alcohol or fruit juice, Su said.
The station’s ginger black tea is a prime example, he said.
Ginger must be boiled for a long time to release its flavor, but if tea leaves are boiled along with it, the drink becomes bitter and astringent, he said.
The station therefore pairs ground dried ginger with tea, so the two flavors are extracted at the same rate when it is steeped, he added.
The center would also look at other beverage crops such as coffee, cocoa, mint and chrysanthemum, as well as toppings such as fruit, tapioca pearls and jellies, Su said.
“This is because tea drinks use many mix-and-match ingredients,” he added.
Anything that can be used in a drink would be considered, Su said, adding that the station has developed a method of turning fruit into fine powder.
Apart from its use as a natural coloring or baking ingredient, the powder can also be added to tea to create fruit drinks, he said.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires