Helen's Blog 6

The morning before our final presentation we went to this local tea tasting by a beautiful and quaint Qing dynasty era garden. The inside of the tea ceremony building was so cute and traditonal-style, I immediately loved the atmosphere. For the actual tea tasting we tried both fresh and roasted oolong. I had never actually done a full tea tasting so I was very pleasantly suprised when they brought out complentary tea snacks. They were very beautiful I almost didn’t want to eat them, but my favorite was this taro and pineapple flower-shaped cake. I remember at the tea museum in Pinglin they mentioned which flavors of snacks/cakes go best with what teas, but I forgot. Either way it was a delicious pairing. They also gave us some of the roasted oolong to take home and had us write notes to our future selves to put in the jar. I really wanted to write a poem but I was very indecisive and looking back I already feel like I don’t like what I wrote. Hopefully when I open it again I will feel differently. 


After the tea ceremony it was full speed ahead work time. The project pace was very fast and it was a bit stressful since we still had not come to a final design form conclusion. But eventually it was all worked out, and we focused on a plum blossom inspired from. We even managed to print out a scale model of of our design. I was very pleased. 


For the last dinner in Taiwan I had malatang at small stand near the campus and it was very delicious especially paired with a milk tea! The food by the campus been very good and not expensive, which is something Udistrict could learn from. After dinner we met up with some others at the Chinese idiom bar (万昌起义) and I tried two new cocktails which sadly did not surpass the absinthe one I had a couple days ago but I did have a very delicious jasmine green tea shot. Sadly, I couldn’t stay for long since I had to wake up at 6 for my train back to Taipei. 


Overall, this was such an amazing experience learning all about Taiwanese design and greatly strengthening my understanding of circular design. Thank you to everyone who made it possible.  


I didn’t share earlier but I am still thinking about the chinese vampire (僵尸)  minion with the banana paper seal on its head so I’m sharing now! So cute! 

Comments

  1. MeichunSeptember 16, 2026 at 1:48 AM

    The taro and pineapple flower-shaped cakes are also among my favorites! I'm glad you got to enjoy more cocktails at 萬昌起義.
    Does your post include any images? I couldn't see them, if so.

    ReplyDelete

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