“Juice, best of the best.” Taiwanese boba has unique vitality and creativity. In previous issues, we led you to taste fine tea, bubble milk tea, and other creative drinks with various add-ins. However, the fruit drinks leading the current trend cannot be missed. From the traditional fruit stands and fruit tea sold in boba shops to the vibrant gradient color made from different fruit, you get to enjoy the sweet aroma, plump pulpy fruit and the delightfulness of young hearts. With one cup of juice in hand, your day will be fresh and juicy.
( Photo Credit: 清玉、鮮茶道、foodie_capig、Dear b&b、JennyElin、natsumi.tsou )
Taiwan, the Kingdom of Fruit: Fruit Stands and Aromatic Fruit Teas
Taiwan abounds with fruit. Various fresh fruit can be found each season in Taiwan. In-season juice is also a must to relieve summer heat; orange juice, starfruit juice and kumquat lemonade are the frequently-seen ones in night markets. Early in 1947, fruit stores started to offer juice and Lily Fruits Store is the pioneer. Exhibiting fruit neatly in a refrigerated display case, traditional juice stores offer freshly made juice, which has become an everyday scene in Taiwan. In the 1970s, Milk King featured their classic papaya milkshake and in-door seats becoming the favorite of young people at the time.
Later, because of the popularity of boba, other fruit like lemon, orange, and passion fruit successively become ingredients for making tea, like what are sold in Presotea, Macu and Mr. Wish. Fruit tea with various kinds of fruit slices and pulp hit the market; Yifang is one of the earliest representatives. Besides, many teashops feature drinks with a particular fruit. For example, in 2013, Kingyo, starting a business in Taichung, expanded branches to Taipei. Jade Lemon Tea made with their “golden ratio” recipe once went viral. What’s more, Le Phare’s apple series is especially popular, like apple and strawberry juice containing the extraction of three apples; there are also green tea with watermelon exclusively for summertime and green tea with dragon fruit and cream limited for winter. Yan Shu in Puli, Nantou is another representative famous for vegetable milkshakes, such as sweet potato, taro, and squash milkshakes. Whenever traveling there, we will definitely seize the opportunity to savor one of them.
( Photo Credit: 花甜果室、Dear b&b、Dear b&b )
Color Clash and Gradients: New Colorful Juice Trend
After meeting the demand of gourmets’ palate, in an era of social media, the visual creativity of beverages is also a competing battlefield. From juice/fruit tea with a single coherent color, the color of juice beverages becomes more colorful. For example, Genki Juice in Tainan fills cute bottles with healthy fruit and vegetable juice. Other teashops use transparent packing to emphasize the color clash of two or three colors, which creates another juicy trend!
When dividing colored layers of fruit tea and fruit milk is stressed, some pinkish and crystal beverages girls will be crazy about appear. For instance, Blossoming Juice in eastern Taipei makes smoothies in a verdant garden-like space featuring drinks with a pink or light purple color gradient. Green tea with pineapple and orange soda of MAYBE are so irresistible to many girls. On Yongkang Street, Bobii Frutii uses many kinds of fruit and butterfly pea flowers to create colorful drinks such as Don’t Want to Grow Up with the color gradient of strawberry pink and mango yellow, Mermaid’s Tears with handmade pale blue tapioca balls, which blooms on the Instagram pages of many Japanese and Korean travelers.
( Photo Credit: Dear b&b、echan0507、小澤宅宅 )
You Can Never Miss Them: Our Pocket List for Juice Drinks
From the nostalgia of traditional juice stores to the fashionable fruit tea, we Dear b&b also have our pocket list of juice drinks. Lime House in Hsinchu makes their fresh lemon tea with pure extract of a whole lemon, which surprises Bella, our working partner, to exclaim “it is so divine and so fresh!” Forever Thirty Years Old, a local old shop in Yilan, initially was a street vendor selling only aiyu jelly in lemon juice and passion fruit juice with Yakult and now has a newly designed storefront; regular customers will definitely order passion fruit juice with Yakult adding aiyu. Lime Organic on Yongkang Street uses limes from their orchard to make refreshing lime drinks, and the scent of lime always surrounds the shop. Besides our beloved Yan Shu, Yu Shiang Wu at Wenhua Road Night Market in Chiayi offers green tea with grapefruit which is worth lining up for. No matter what you choose, lemon juice with Yakult or green tea with passion fruit, you should bring a cup of refreshing, pinkish and fresh fruit drinks with sweetness to be your partner who can lighten up all your journeys in Taiwan!