Where does Taiwan tea come from? What tea does Taiwan tea belong to? What is the difference between Taiwan tea and Western tea?

In recent years, there has been a Taiwan craze in London. From the early pearl milk tea and chicken cake to eating a salty and tender Taiwanese cutting bag in the minimally designed BAO, it has become a very "fashionable" thing in the minds of many Londoners. In 2012, BAO, founded by three young people, Shing and Ting, an overseas Chinese from Britain, and Erchen from Taiwan, has opened several stores in London, but recently they have come to the "Chinatown", the center of Chinese in London, to launch a new brand "Xu Ruhua Garden" with Taiwanese tea, food and old Taiwan atmosphere.

Unlike the minimalist BAO, Xu Ru, who rebuilt the atmosphere of old Taiwan in the 1930s, has more complicated and elegant details, and many beautiful tea-related things from Taiwan want to be passed on to more people to know. In London, where the tea culture is also profound, we invite Erchen, one of the founders, to share with us more stories about Xu Ruhua Garden and Tea:

Different from the form of snacks, why would you want to set up a new brand in Chinatown with "tea" as the main way?

We have always been very interested in tea, and even at BAO BAR, which started at the market, tea has always been on all BAO menus. From growing tea only in Wenshan to extending the tea menu of SOHO, we have carefully selected our favorite Taiwanese tea. Every time I return to Taiwan, I will go to teahouses and teahouses to taste tea, try new flavors or look for better quality tea. When I conceived the restaurant of Xu Ru Hua Yuan, I hoped that Taiwan tea could be a large part of the new restaurant. Now the strictly selected teas include Hongyu from Nantou, Jinxuan from Alishan, ten-year-old tea from Xianlin, oriental beauty from Pinglin, and so on.

Another reason is related to memories: my grandfather's surname is Xu, and Xu Ruhua Garden is named after my grandfather. When my grandfather took me to dance class when I was a child, I always went to the teahouse to have tea with my friends until the end of my class. In the teahouse, the smell of steaming tea is permeated, and regular customers come and go and become friends. The form of making friends and communication space always make me feel romantic. I hope that in addition to the meals, Xu Ruhua Garden can also have a human touch that people can keep in their memory, and that they can make friends with tea. In addition, the tea in Taiwan is so good, of course, it must be more directly accessible to the British who also love tea.

What is the difference between Taiwan tea and western tea?

Tea shops in Britain usually sell tea from all over the world, including Darjeeling, Assam black tea in India, jade dew, green tea, fried tea in Japan, Dahongpao in Wuyi, Pu'er in Yunnan, white tea in Anhui, and so on. In addition to a single tea, prefer scented tea or each store's classic Blended Tea; store to mix tea with flowers or dried fruit, as well as tea mixed with spices, and so on, there are many choices, but also some dazzling. Black tea wins the majority. In recent years, Japanese green tea has also been widely accepted, but it still prefers convenient tea bags, and the concept of using complete pieces of tea is not yet popular.

Culturally, the issue of "drinking tea" has spread to every corner: tea or coffee in the morning and milk tea with biscuits in the afternoon Tea Break. If you go to British and American Greasy Spoon for breakfast, you will also have black tea filled with a mark cup, which is so black that you can't see the bottom and add a lot of milk. that kind of tea is called Builders Tea in Britain, because workers often have a cup of strong tea with milk and sugar when they rest! Personally, I actually like it very much. People like to gossip over tea, invite friends and colleagues over for tea, or use Should we go crab a tea/ coffee if they need to talk about business at work. To replace the way we went to the meeting next door.

In contrast to Taiwan's tea culture, in addition to the chain of pearl milk tea, many drinks have been replaced by countless choices in convenience stores. The form of visiting neighbors and chatting with Kungfu Tea has long been greatly reduced. But fortunately, many contemporary teahouses have been born in recent years. I hope we can bring such a beautiful culture back to life.