Have tea with refreshments! Tourism and Travel Bureau, Taichung City Government launched a series of “Taichung Afternoon Tea Life Festival” activities, including five afternoon tea salons, two-day afternoon tea party, six-day afternoon tea digital forum to show depth of Taichung’s afternoon tea culture industry. Tourism and Travel Bureau Director Chen Sheng-shan invites the public to attend and see a more elegant Taichung with a different perspective.

Taichung Afternoon Tea Life Festival highlights “the origin of Taichung’s afternoon tea culture”, holding 5 afternoon tea salons in Rose House, Good Days restaurant, Chioushantang, and Yunchuancha hut from December 6th through 20th. A six-day afternoon tea digital forum will be held in Taiwan Tourism Forum on December 15th. Afternoon tea parties will be grandly held in Caowu Square on December 17th and 18th, from 3pm to 8pm.

According to Director Chen, walking into the “Tea drinks time machine” reminds him of old memories. In the old days, you knew the almond tea vendor was coming when you heard the whistle blowing coming from the alley. The hot silver white tea along with fried bread sticks and clay oven rolls created a sweet childhood memory. At the intersection of section 1, Taiwan Boulevard and Zhongzheng Road, there is an old man over 80 years old who has been selling homemade steamed buns for over 60 years. It’s a local must-eat afternoon refreshment, a precious memory of the past.

He mentioned that in the 1960s and 1970s, the bubble tea shops sprang up like mushrooms on Shuangshi Road. Tea makers in Taichung first created cold tea in a small pot with bubble tea as an example which has changed Taiwan’s tea drinking market and has become Taiwan’s national drink. With the passage of time, Taichung people’s creative and free lifestyles are reflected in the rich variety of tea refreshment industry and are embedded in local Taichung people and new immigrants’ lives. Visitors are welcomed to be charmed by Taichung’s tea culture and see a more elegant Taichung in a different perspective.

Relevant information can be found on Facebook fan page “Have tea with refreshments. Taichung afternoon tea time” (呷茶配餅.台中午茶拾光in Chinese) https://www.facebook.com/Taichung.afternoontea/.