Tea Emperor

During my visit to Taiwan in December 2009, I found this new fusion kitchen where Taiwanese afternoon tea is served.

Taiwanese afternoon tea? you might wonder. Well, as well-known as English afternoon tea can be, the equally, if not more enthusiastic tea drinkers in Taiwan, surely should develop their own Taiwanese afternoon tea, right?

Taiwanese afternoon tea is a new concept developed by the newly-opened DaiWanMi restaurant. It serves both authentic Taiwanese dishes as well as Taiwanese street snacks with some conceptual fusions from Japan and England. In their take on Taiwanese afternoon tea, the result is common Taiwanese street snacks arranged in Japanese dining style, with a beautiful Chinese tea pot that is reminiscent of an elegant English tea afternoon. Lovely!

My personal experience on the Taiwanese afternoon tea was excellent. Snacks are tasty, visually beautiful, clean, and well presented. The pot in use for the tea, is elegantly designed art tea pot. As for the tea, there are several typical Taiwanese and Chinese tea in options, such as Oolong tea, green tea, jasmine green tea, Pu-er tea.. etc. So Taiwanese afternoon tea here doesn’t refer to any specific kind of tea, but an innovative concept of combining several best elements together to create something very Taiwanese and original.

Some more words about Taiwanese snacks: they refer to big varieties of food locally developed in Taiwan, commonly seen on the street and night market and very well-known in Chinese speaking world for their original and delicious tastes. If you ask anybody from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, what comes to their mind when thinking about Taiwan, I bet that nine out of ten will say Taiwanese snacks and bubble tea.

Therefore the idea of presenting Taiwanese snacks in an elegant style, packed with familiar afternoon tea concept, is to my opinion an really smart move to go international. Indeed, one ambition of DaiWanMi is to bring Taiwanese local taste to international stage. DaiWanMi means “original taste from Taiwan”, pronounced in the local dialect Taiwanese. According to the news the restaurant has received some inquiring from China and Malaysia.

Here is TaiWanMi’s website (in Chinese)