Graham Holland's Taiwan website

IT'S A FROG'S LIFE
IN TAIWAN

Drink

Soft Drinks	"I love coffee, I love tea I love the java jive and it loves me Coffee and tea and the jivin' and me A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!" - Java Jive, by The Ink Spots
Crazy over Coffee Shops January 08
Café culture
How about a nice cup of tea?

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Soft Drinks

When he was living in Liverpool (UK) Richard used to wander down the soft drinks isle of the local supermarket and decry the lamentable selection on offer. "In Taiwan," he said, "the range of soft drinks is incredible. Here it's just so limited." It wasn't until I arrived in Taiwan that I came to fully understand what he meant.

The selection of soft drinks on offer in Taiwan is, indeed, incredible. Fruit juice (think of a fruit and you can probably buy it in juice form), vegetable juice (think of a vegetable...), milk tea (tea-flavoured milk) of various types, green tea, black tea, chilled coffee, and health drinks - and that's just to start!

Here is a typical selection in an average convenience store...

Fruit juice + vegetable juice	More fruit juice + chilled coffee	Vegetable juice + flavoured milk	Alcohol (hic)


Green tea	Fruit flavoured drinks + water	Milk tea + other juice	Fizzy drinks

You can also buy drinks supplied fresh at one of the many independent drinks stalls situated around the city. Once your drink has been prepared, a handy machine heat-seals a plastic sheet to the top of the cup thereby preventing spills and keeping it fresher until the customer is ready to drink it. A straw with a point at one end is also provided so you can puncture the plastic film with one firm downward motion. That's the theory anyway.


	Jumbo straws like this are common.

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Crazy over Coffee Shops
January 2008 with a new coffee logos!

"Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death, and sweet as love."
- Turkish Proverb

"Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water."
The Women's Petition Against Coffee (1674)

The Taiwanese love their cafés, but are particularly crazy over their coffee shops. While not quite as ubiquitous as the convenience store, there are still a huge number of coffee houses scattered across Taipei and the surrounding area.

There's Starbucks - the McDonalds of the coffee world...

Company legend tells that the new company, formed in 1971 in Seattle, was named Starbucks in honor of Starbuck, the coffee-loving first mate in Herman Melville's Moby Dick and because they thought the name evoked the romance of the high seas and the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders. The new company's logo, designed by an artist friend, is a two-tailed mermaid encircled by the store's name.

Then there's Barista Coffee...

Apparently, 'barista' is the Italian word for 'bartender', although what bartenders have to do with coffee I don't know. "Excuse me, bartender. I'd like a coffee, please." I don't think so...

E Coffee

Maybe 'A Coffee', 'B Coffee', 'C Coffee' and 'D Coffee' all failed for want of a better name? Who knows?

Actually, 'D Coffee' does exist...

Or at leat it used to exist. This one has obviously sold it's last 'coffee toffee freeze'...

Dante Coffee...	...and Latte Coffee

Why 'Dante Coffee' I have no idea. As for Latte Coffee, according to one helpful website, "Latte is a slang word for café latte". No kidding, Sherlock!

"A cup of coffee - real coffee - home-browned, home ground, home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all."
- 'Eyes and Ears' Henry Ward Beecher

I have discovered the secret of a really good, really successful coffee shop. It's not the menu, it's not the location, it's not the name, it's not the price, and it's not (heaven forbid) even the coffee beans. No, the secret of a great coffee shop is the logo. The unwritten rule of coffee shop logos is that it should be circular, with writing round the outside, and a motif in the middle. The evidence kinda speaks for itself, doesn't it?





Dante's cutting edge oval logo...	...followed by Coffee Kings
	*The secret isn't* in the coffee beans...**
January 2008 The following logos were collected on my visit back to Taiwan in December 2007. There were lots more I didn't get a chance to photograph because I was in a moving car!
This is the logo for 7-11's own brand of coffee. Order it across the counter and they'll make it for you as you wait.	I get the feeling that maybe Niko Cafe, brought to you by Niko Mart wasn't quite as successful at the owners had hoped. This one was closed, and I didn't see any more on my travels.

January 2008 All of the above logos were collected in Taiwan. However, the 'circular-logo-with-writing-round-the-outside-and-a-motif-in-the-middle' rule is truly an international one, and on returning to the UK I have collected the following from around the world as further irrefutable evidence that my theory is indeed correct.	Liverpool Lime Street Station
Rose Lane, Liverpool	Motorway service station Burtonwood - M62





So here's the challenge... If you find any more circular coffee logos like these then email them to me at itsafrogslife@hotmail.com and I will add them to this page with your name and a thanks.

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Café Culture

It would be easy to think that coffee shops are the only places that exist where one can sit down, relax, and have a drink and a piece of cake (normally cheesecake). However, that would be unfair on those cafés which have successfully resisted the temptation to label themselves as 'Something-or-other' Coffee, and to stick a round sign with a logo in the middle on the front of the shop...

Alison's Café is my favourite café in Taipei city and is a prime example of how to do things right. Just a stone's throw away from the always-too-busy Starbucks at The Breeze Centre, Alison's is a haven of tranquility, even at the times when it is busy! The menu is great, and the service is personal and unrushed. Most Tuesday afternoons I hide away in Alison's for an hour or two with a hot or iced chocolate and a good book.

Alison's Café - a haven of tranquility in Taipei city.

Unfortunately, on my return to Taiwan in December 2007 I found out that Alison's is no more, and has been replaced by Nikkoffee. Well, as far as I'm concerned, Nikkoffee can just 'nikk-off'!

McLatte anyone?

The antithesis of Alison's, and entering the café market as some sort of illegitimate love-child from an unholy union between Starbucks and McDonalds, comes McDonalds' own answer to the café-cum-coffee-shop money-making machine - The McCafe!

The McCafé concept was first introduced in Australia in the early 1990s, thereby raising the question "What had the Australians done to deserve it?". It was, not surprisingly, a success and very quickly spread to other countries and dominians around the world. What is billed in the press releases as a 'gormet coffee experience', the McCafé is a McDonalds' café - without the golden arches. Some of the McCafés are attached to new or established branches of the McDonalds fast food chain. However, as suitable locations have become available McCafés have been set up by themselves.

Taipei has at least one McCafé that I know of, in Tianmu. When I saw it I thought it was a joke, and went on to comment about how McDonalds would 'sue their buts off' (or words to that effect) if they ever found out about the name. It was only afterwards that it was pointed out to me that the McCafé is part of the McDonalds empire and, as such, they are unlikely to sue themselves.

I have been to the McCafé in Tianmu once when Richard and I had some time to kill before a movie showtime. We had a waffle ice cream creation which was rather nice, although it would have to have been nice given the amount of time we had to wait for it - and our drinks - to be served... Fast food it definitely wasn't.

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The Tea House - "How about a nice cup of tea?"

"Coffee is prose, but tea is poetry." - Unknown source

"Angel came down from heaven yesterday, she stayed with me just long enough for afternoon tea..." - Angel by Jimi Hendrix

Eddie: "The entire British empire was built on cups of tea, and if you think I'm going to war without one, mate, you're mistaken." - Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

With the upsurge in popularity of coffee shops in recent years it's all too easy to forget the importance of tea in this part of the world. Tea is as much part of life here in Taiwan as it is in mainland China. It is served hot in homes, and chilled in bottles. Green tea, black tea, and Oolong tea - whichever you prefer. There are many traditional tea drinking houses across Taiwan catering mainly for men, but there is also a new breed of tea house aimed unashamedly at women. These are the 'Art tea houses' such as the London Tea House, and Rose House Tea House.

Rose House can be found at over 40 locations across Taiwan. Why not pop in for afternoon tea? If you do you'll be greeted by a sumptuous interior dominated by wooden panelling, ornate light fittings, red leather sofas, and roses gallore. Stepping into Rose House from a regular street in Taipei is like being transported in space and time back to Victorian England. Or is that Edwardian? I could never tell the difference...

And with over 200 teas on the menu you'll be spoiled for choice when faced with deciding which particular tea should accompany your 'afternoon tea'.


	Tea, biscuits and rose-flavoured cake, all enjoyed in elegant surroundings.
	'Afternoon tea' consists of the tea of your choice, plus your choice of biscuits, scones, and sandwiches.
Warning !!! (based on personal experience) Beware anything flavoured with rose (apart from Turkish Delight - of course) It may look and sound good on the menu, but in real life... it ain't! Try eating a rose scone and you'll know what I mean.

And finally...

If you want to know more about tea then there are plenty of websites out there, including The History of Tea.

The final word on tea has to go to Mrs Doyle from the wonderful Channel 4 comedy series, Father Ted. It has absolutely nothing to do with Taiwan, but everything to do with tea.

"Father, I LOVE the whole tea-making thing! You know, the playful 'splash!' of the tea as it hits the bottom of the cup; the thrill of adding the milk, and watching it settle for a moment, before it filters slowly down through the cup, changing the colour from dark brown to...a lighter brown. Perching an optional Jaffa cake on the saucer, like a proud soldier standing to attention beside a giant...cup of tea!" Mrs Doyle (played by Pauline McLynn) from 'Father Ted' Written by Graham Linehan & Arthur Matthews for Channel 4, 1996
"Father, won't you have a nice cup of tea? Ah, go on, go on, go on..."
Such a simple faith... in tea.
Allergic to tea? Sure, I'll make you a cup anyway in case you change your mind.

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