Back home in Texas, USA I was planning a trip to my favorite island in the world, Taiwan. Unexpectedly, I received a message from a friend I had made during my previous visit to Taiwan, Donna, who worked for an upcoming tourist company “Wow-Taiwan”.
A visit to a tea hill station surrounded by serene hills, bamboo trees creating a lush forest and majestic valleys. (Enjoy a Tea break | Day tour)
The most intriguing part, however, was that the area was not very well known to many Taiwanese. Since I was interested to discover the best parts of this beautiful land I did not hesitate with my answer.
A few weeks later was the start of the most memorable experience I have had so far on my trip.
The journey begins as we arrive to the High Speed Railway station at Yunlin. A beautiful, modern building that is probably the quietest train station I have been to since the population that it supplies is quite small.
On one side were misty hilltops, mysterious and magical. On the other side a pleasant surprise awaited us.
A massive pig on a barbeque being slowly cooked over eight hours to be ready for our dinner!
Our particular trip consisted of four young and enthusiastic bloggers and about forty other tourists. .
【Make your own tableware by bamboo】
Next, we were each supplied with a bamboo bowl, cup and matching bamboo chopsticks. It was clear that the theme of this trip would be all about bamboo!
We then proceeded to engrave our names on these, a wonderful souvenir to remember this day for years to come. Thereafter, we were ushered to a sugar cane processing plant. The extraction of the sugar cane juice was then dried to harden and mixed with ginger. The result was a unique taste that can also be used to flavor a hot drink. We were supplied with goodbye gifts of these products and I am excited to share these with friends and family back in the US. A unique taste of Taiwan.
【Make own sugar cube directly from sugar cane 】
Boiling the sugar extracting from the sugar can for hours.
the most fresh sugar ! #handmade
The rest of the afternoon was spent learning to make coffee literally from scratch using the coffee beans supplied from the surrounding area. These were gently roasted to our desired taste using a special apparatus.
【Make coffee with Taiwanese flavor】
A competition was set up to see which group could create the most perfect cup of coffee.
The roasted coffee beans were then ground up and through a process of filtration our first cup of coffee was created. The lingering soft aroma from the coffee is what I will always remember. It was our first effort and we were proud of it, despite the fact that we never came close to winning the coffee tasting competition!
【Enjoy dinner with local ingredients in the mountain】
The evening was then spent dining on the delicious, slowly roasted pig. The pig cooking master was a character in himself with a colorful, bright red, punk type hairstyle. He was renowned for his pig cooking abilities and would travel to various special occasions to satisfy the appetites of many a foodie.
Fish fried rice, plum tea, pork soup, bamboo and a spread of other vegetables, some unique to the area rounded up the meal.
The tour is provided by Wow-TAIWAN
Email: sharelocal@wow-taiwan.com
Phone: +886 289782924
Skype: localfuntw
