When visiting Taiwan, has a Taiwanese friend ever treated you to a cup of cool, refreshing herbal tea on a hot summer’s day? Go to Herb Lane in Taipei’s Wanhua District and you will find that the street of small shops offering hundreds of types of herbs very much resembles Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter books.
Taiwan has more than 13,000 convenience stores, with one for every 1,582 people according to a 2021 survey by the Mirai Business Research Institute. This places Taiwan second only to world leader Korea, where the figure is 1,200.
In January 2023 Google celebrated bubble tea with an interactive doodle, bringing this iconic Taiwanese treat to the notice of the world. Each of Taiwan’s hand-shaken drinks shops has its own unique character, and the beverages they sell brim with creative ingenuity. Let’s see how Taiwanese drinks have taken the world by storm.
The island of Taiwan, though not especially large, is home to more than 300 night markets. Unfurl a map of Taiwan and take a look at the townships—more than two-thirds of them are host to at least one night market. The high density of night markets reflects the enthusiasm of Taiwanese people for food culture.
It’s no secret that the Taiwanese are passionate about food. This devotion to culinary delights, coupled with Taiwan’s cultural diversity, guarantees the island’s prestige as a gastronomic paradise. Our vibrant culture is characterized by dietary variety, and vegetarian foods have enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity in recent years.
Many people believe that Mandarin Chinese (also known as Huayu) is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn. But do you know what? You only need to know 3,100 characters to match the reading skills of a native speaker.
In 2002, German chemist Michael Braungart and American architect William McDonough published Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which proposes achieving sustainability by emulating the circular processes of Nature. Their idea was to orient design around a circular system of reuse that turns waste into “nutrients” that can be fed back into the system.
In 1930, Kuo Hsueh-hu painted Festival on South Street, which depicts the vitality and clamor of a street scene—including countless shop signs—in Taipei’s Dadaocheng area, and makes viewers feel as if they are right there rubbing shoulders in the crowd. In 2017, the Japanese magazine Brutus put out a special issue on Taiwan, with a picture of Tainan’s Guohua Street as its cover.
In Taiwan people eat candy at the Lunar New Year and at weddings, while in Taiwanese Hokkien the phrase “eat sweet things” is an auspicious saying used to wish others well. It is precisely because candy has a sweet taste that it symbolizes felicity and good fortune.
Fermented foods such as cheese, miso, and wine are common parts of modern people’s daily diets, and fermented tofu and soy sauce in particular are essential to East Asian cuisines. Taiwan’s Yilan County offers an excellent environment for fermentation, and the Erhu area of its Yuanshan Township is the most northerly location in Taiwan where ‘Smooth Cayenne’ pineapples are grown.
