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Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 9:00 am
Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum and Ceramics Old Street
Wanting to start out with a light morning, we headed to he town of Yingge, which hosts a very large and famous museum dedicated to the art and history of ceramics and pottery. The exhibits range from modern art, historic pieces, use of ceramics in technology and electronics throughout history, pottery classes, and even a toilet with a TV screen inside!
Most of the photos we took don’t require much of a description and can be found in the Yingge photo section.
It was a really neat museum and we actually learned way more than we ever thought we could about pottery.
In case you don’t get a chance to see the photo section, I must be a few of our favorites here so you don’t leave this website thinking “there is a museum in Taiwan that has a bunch of toilets with TV screens in them....”
Some of our favorites:
Top: much prettier than you average cockroach; a pig shaped teapot, a huge tractor made entirely from clay - it was huge, probably 1 m high (3 ft).
Bottom: The pottery process, from clay to kiln; breakable bamboo; small square on the bottom is the colorful clay shingles you see on traditional Taiwanese houses.
One story we have to tell: the museum’s admission is pretty cheap, but can be free if you have any old receipts with you. You see, in Taiwan, all the receipts you get from retail sales (candy bar, restaurant, gasoline, etc.) are printed on the same kind of receipt and have a unique serial number. People in Taiwan ALMOST ALWAYS save these receipts, as there is a government lottery every month where a serial number is announced. The winnings can be as high as 2 million NTD (60,000 USD) and there are many other small winnings as well. So, if you are in Taiwan, save your receipts!
Anyway, we had no receipts on us, as we just left all of them at Ching-Yu’s parents’ house. These nice girls had two extra and gave them to us. Thanks again!!
Between the museum and the famous Old Street, Ching-Yu introduced me to a new love: Grandma’s Sushi. Not her grandma’s sushi, but a restaurant place called Grandma’s Sushi (well, 阿婆壽司 in Chinese.) This isn’t the typical raw fish and avocado kind you might be imaging, but other delicious items inside the rice and seaweed roll such as egg, shredded pork, tofu, pickled vegetables. THey have other things besides sushi, such as cold noodles (great in hot weather!) and aged duck egg - tastier than it sounds, believe me! Here’s what we had for lunch... my mouth is watering as I am adding these pictures. I realize we didn’t take any close-ups, you’ll have to use your imaginations.
The Old Street in Yingge is the place to go if you are looking for pottery of any kind. While the street was historically pottery and ceramics only, it has evolved into a center for all sorts of glassware, stoneware, rocks, gems - pretty much anything hard and decorative. It’s a bit of sensory overload: we walked into a massive store, looked around for a while and accidentally came out the other side into a different street (Old Street is a bit misleading, it’s actually multiple streets). We ended up in a shop that sells tea wares, and it ended up being a lot more reasonably priced than it looked. I bought a nice little personal clay tea pot, but forgot to take a picture. Maybe soon!
These are the ones I wanted to buy, but way out of my price range!
Busy day! Off to Beipu!
(be sure to check out the photo album to see larger sized photos - comments are appreciated :)
This article is published in the following three locations:
1. West Meets 東 Voting Website Day 2 (If you like this article or our team, please go vote for us here )
2. West Meets 東 Day 2 Yingge Ceramics Museum & Old Street
3. Althea's Wretch Blog Day 2-1 Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum and Ceramics Old Street
Welcome all the comments! Thanks for your support! ___________________________________________________________________________________ Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 1:00 pm Beipu Water Well Tea House for Hakka Culture and Lei Cha
Taiwan has many different ethnicities, each with their own customs, traditions, foods, etc. While it would be impossible to capture all of Taiwan’s diversity in a four day trip, we tried to focus on a few examples each day.
Beipu, which is in Hsinchu county, just south of where we start, is well known for Hakka culture. Lei Cha is a drink made with tea that is representative of Hakka culture. We got to observe, participate, and enjoy this tasty beverage at the Water Well Tea House and Hakka Cultural Workshop.
Ching-Yu (who is part Hakka!) is standing outside the tea house. The sign reads “Water Well Tea House” in Chinese. This building is very old and has great historical significance. The baroque-style archways were popular at the time it was built, during the late Qing dynasty (late 1800s, early 1900s). The original building actually occupied the entire street block, and has since been divided into several unique tea shops and residences.
Some shots of corridor in front of the building, including the entrance to the bathroom, which was really cool. The red fabric you see is a very typical Hakka fabric print.
Inside the tea shop:
The tea in the boxes, the tea snack in the traditional packages, the tea candy in the traditional jars, and their tea set!
There was a very neat little back room in the tea house, full of pictures of people that have visited the tea shop, some celebrities, some just cool old pictures of everyday local tea drinkers. There was also some artwork created by passerbys of the tea shop.
This poster is a collection of many different people - kids and adults alike - drawing the fruit 金桔 (jin ju), which translates to kumquat in English. The kumquat is a very lucky symbol in Chinese, loosely relating to the similarities in its pronunciation and the words for good fortune and wealth in Chinese. More to come about kumquats in a future blog.... In the background, you can see part of the large scroll hanging on the wall, along with pictures of customers over the years.
And finally, the Lei Cha:
Top: Ingredients: Taiwanese tea, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds. These are all ground together in a clay mortar with ribs on the bottom with a huge stick. As you can imagine, this is NOT EASY. We all tried, and let me tell you, this woman is a PROFESSIONAL, in both technique, strength, and stamina. You will have to check out our video to see us trying.
Bottom: Finally, all the seeds, nuts, and tea turns into a thick homogeneous paste and hot water is added to make the tea. It is garnished with puffed rice (not too different from Rice Krispies). the lady was telling us that in Hakka culture, the ladies would be sitting around chatting, passing the mortar around and taking turns mashing all the ingredients. Let me tell you, it takes a long time and is always done by hand. You won’t find any Magic Bullets in this tea shop.
The Lei Cha was very delicious and quite filling. I think of it as more of a breakfast than a beverage.
This tea shop had a huge array of other types of tea for sale. We were served some cold Oriental Beauty tea before we left, a nice segue to our next stop in Beipu - an Oriental Beauty tea factory!
(be sure to check out the photo album to see larger sized photos - comments are appreciated :)
This article is published in the following three locations:
1. West Meets 東 Voting Website Day 2 (If you like this article or our team, please go vote for us here )
2. West Meets 東 Day 2 Beipu Water Well Tea House for Hakka Culture and Lei Cha
3. Althea's Wretch Blog Day 2-2 Beipu Water Well Tea House for Hakka Culture and Lei Cha
Welcome all the comments! Thanks for your support! ___________________________________________________________________________________ Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 3:00 PM Beipu Oriental Beauty Tea
This is the gentleman we met (below). You see, Ching-Yu spent countless hours contact the farmers’ association in each county we were visiting. They put her in touch with the “class leaders” of each group of tea farmers in the area. This particular class leader was not making tea that day, but his buddy, another tea farmer, was. We just briefly saw the inside of this guy’s store, as seen below. He then took us to his buddy’s tea factory, which also made Oriental Beauty Tea. He also gave us two samples of his own tea, which I have since drank and let me tell you: it’s awesome. That’s why it costs 10,000 Taiwan dollars for a 600g bag (about 300 USD).
Oriental Beauty Tea (東方美人茶) is one of the most well-known Taiwanese teas worldwide. It was named by Queen Elizabeth II after a British merchant brought it to her in the early 20th century. Oriental beauty tea is easy to spot by the tricolor appearance of the leaves: white tips with green and red coloring to the leaves. (see picture below).
The secret of Oriental Beauty tea is a tiny little insect which slurps on the leaves, causing a unique oxidation process that gives Oriental Beauty Tea its unique taste. The insect in a member of the Cicadelle family, Jacobiasca formosana to be exact.
The tea master demonstrated the different to us both in taste and in appearence. Unfortunately, I can’t really upload taste, but I can show you a picture!
The one on the left clearly has a more golden red color. This is due to a high concentration of insects in the tea fields that year. The taste was truly different as well! The one on the left had a much deeper and more refined sweetness. According to the tea master, whether or not these insects feast on a particular crop is unpredictable and determines whether they can turn that crop into Oriental Beauty tea, or a different variety. This is one of the many things that makes tea so interesting: several different teas, tasting and appearing entirely different, can be from the same exact species. The differentiation comes from the climate, amount of fermentation, whether or not the insects are hanging around, etc.
The many awards this particular tea master has won in his shop. This guy has an interesting set up in his factory: he pretty much grows the same amount of tea all year round but produces different styles purely based on demand. This means his crop can range from super top shelf Oriental Beauty Tea (if the insects cooperate) to run-of-the-mill red tea which is sold to big companies to make commercially packaged tea. As he said, the demand tends to be more for the large quantity cheap stuff, although he definitely has the capability to go high-end, as exemplified by his many awards shown above. You will see plenty of those large wooden tea awards on this blog as we continue to tour teamakers’ homes and factories.
I am glad that we were able to see a factory that focuses on large-scale tea. Up until now, we have always visited the premium factories where many steps are small-scale or hand-made. This guy had those things too, but all the big guns as well. As you can see below by the huge mountain of red tea.
Top Left: This huge elevate moves the tea from the roaster ovens and spits it out to form this huge mountain of tea (center).
Right: From time to time, one of the workers climbs up this ladder, walks across the mountain (ehem.. barefoot) and rakes the tea mound down.
Bottom: These machines are used for sorting the stems from the good leaves. Quite the opposite of what we have seen so far.
In typical tea master fashion, we were served tea in the most proper of ways. And don’t be fooled! This tea farmer may focus on high volume, but his top shelf Oriental Beauty Tea doesn’t suffer for it!
Here is the four of us!
And now for some driving! Off to the famous Sun Moon Lake where we learn about more tea, experience a new culture, new food, and some alternative beverages...
be sure to check out the photo album to see larger sized photos - comments are appreciated :)
This article is published in the following three locations:1. West Meets 東 Voting Website Day 2 (If you like this article or our team, please go vote for us here )
2. West Meets 東 Day 2 Beipu Oriental Beauty Tea
3. Althea's Wretch Blog Day 2-3 Beipu Oriental Beauty Tea
Welcome all the comments! Thanks for your support! ___________________________________________________________________________________ Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 8:00 PM Sun Moon Tea Shop for Red Tea and Ita Thao's Traditional Millet Wine & Camping We wanted to spend a good part o the morning at Sun Moon Lake the next day, so we made the long drive this afternoon. It was a great idea, and a much needed rest from all of the stuff we did today. It was a beautiful ride through the mountains, no traffic, and very unlike back home in Wisconsin, NO ROAD CONSTRUCTION. Woohoo!
We had reservations at Rock-Camp Camping Grounds, but as soon as arrive, our massive hunger hit us. As it was very late, we scurried over to the neighboring village, Ita Thao (named for the aboriginal tribe that inhabits the area - more to come later!)
There are a ton of little shops (with strange little owl carvings outside), street vendors, and small restaurants - all of which were CLOSED! Just as we were able to call it quits and grab some less-healthy choices from the 7Eleven, we saw that glorious, dimly lit little hole-in-the-wall restaurant at the end of the row with someone standing by the grill outside. It was like a mirage! As we approached, our hopes began to fade as it looked like he was actually cleaning up. But, after hearing Ching-Yu’s most sweet and polite Chinese, he ushered us to a table. Haaaaaaaa-le-lu-jah!
This wasn’t just any restaurant, it was a GOOD restaurant.... Our feast:
From top left to bottom right: Fried squid with fried basil = unreal! Fried Rice; some Taiwanese Beer (Taiwan Pi-Chio or Tai-Pi for short) - an absolute necessity with fried squid; “mountain pig” - a local specialty: a delicious type of stir-fried boar (more to come tomorrow); and, finally, another local essential: stir-fried sugar cane hearts, which surprisingly, are not really that sweet, but very VERY good. And yes, me drinking like a sailor from the serving bottle. A joke for the picture.... or was it?
After our late dinner, we came across another lovely surprise. The local store owner across the street was still around his shop and he invited us over to sample some of his rice wine. It was late, we were exhausted, and we still had to set up our campsite, but we were feeling adventurous - plus, we realized they had an iguana. What could be cooler than rice wine and an iguana? Not much.
The local specialty drink is a type of fermented rice wine made with super small grain rice, or millet (see picture below of two rice containers, millet is on the right). In Chinese it is called 小米酒 or “little rice wine.” The darker colored wine you see below is made from the purple sticky rice, shown in the container on the left. We sampled them - all of them. We purchased a bottle of the darker stuff (the purchase, bottom left). THis guy was so incredibly nice, he threw in a mini bottle of the other stuff, the super fermented version - not for the weak of heart. He also showed me his teas (bottom right) which are the local specialty - Taiwanese Tea #18 (Tai-Cha 18) - more about this tomorrow. We will be back to visit out new friends after we get some sleep.
We had a lot of fun with the iguana, and he definitely deserves his own collage:
And finally we made it our camp site, with just enough energy to put up a tent. I can’t say it was easy: the ground was pretty much made up of gravel - not the easiest material drive flimsy metal stakes into. It was nice to be so exhausted, it made sleeping on a pile of gravel with only a small foam mat and a sleeping bag a whole lot easier!
Goodnight!
be sure to check out the photo album to see larger sized photos - comments are appreciated :)
This article is published in the following three locations:1. West Meets 東 Voting Website Day 2 (If you like this article or our team, please go vote for us here )
2. West Meets 東 Day 2 Sun Moon Lake for dinner, wine, and camping!
Welcome all the comments! Thanks for your support! ___________________________________________________________________________________
