Friday, February 13, 2015

飲料 : Drinks!


While food is essential to one's experience in Taiwan, drinks are omnipresent.  Every street has at least one tea stand selling all kinds of tea drinks, usually sweetened or with milk, but sometimes, if the tea is good enough quality, without anything at all to alter the natural flavor.  Often the teas are mixed with fruit (kumquat, passionfruit, apple -- popular choices) or sometimes jellies or tapioca creations.  Sometimes no tea at all is involved.  Watermelon milk, papaya milk, taro milk, and avocado milk drinks are just as popular.

So, here is the drinks list:

高山茶 gao shan cha (lit. high mountain tea) - High Mountain Tea
西瓜牛奶 xi gua niu nai (lit. "western-melon" cow milk) - Watermelon Milk
酪梨牛奶 ruo li niu nai (lit. "curdled milk-pear" cow milk) - Avocado Milk
燒仙草 shao xian cao (lit. "boiled-immortal-grass") - Shao Xian Cao (a boiled herb that turns into a jelly when chilled)
愛玉 ai yu (lit. love jade) - Ai Yu (another type of fruit/herb that when processed creates a greenish, transparent jelly-substance that is ultimately drunk)
太極紅茶 tai ji hong cha (lit. "The Supreme Ultimate" red tea) - Black Tea (from a tea store chain with the name Tai-Ji, or "The Supreme Ultimate", a mythological idea--the source of all things)
珍珠奶茶 zhen zhu nai cha (lit. "precious bead" milk tea) - Pearl Milk Tea ("bubble tea")

For both this drinks' list, and the previous post of food, there are many, many things that I didn't have time to conclude or thought of in retrospect.  I will therefore post anything and everything interesting I eat or drink while in Taiwan.  These were simply teasers.


No comments:

Post a Comment