From a single tea leaf, a cup of bubble tea and a bowl of douhua to the lights of the night market — sail six stops along Taiwan's coast to meet its flavors and people, and see how a Taiwanese food company carries them to the world.
Along Taiwan's coastline — setting off from the tea hills and finally sailing from the harbor to the world.
Brand Philosophy
Tang Sugar Brand Philosophy: Taiwanese Food and Taiwanese Service, Bringing the Flavors of Taiwan to the World
From the Formosa Oolong that sailed to New York in 1869 to bubble tea loved around the globe, Taiwan has long been sending great flavors to the world. Tang Sugar (Caitang International) is a Taiwanese company proud of the food Taiwanese people make and the service they provide. With consistent ingredient quality, clear partnership terms and verifiable supply capability, we…
It introduces Taiwan's tea, bubble tea, night-market food, fruit and sugar, everyday life and Made in Taiwan, and shows how Tang Sugar brings these flavors and Taiwanese service to partners around the world.
How is Taiwan Stories different from the blog?
Taiwan Stories covers culture, origins and Taiwan through foreign eyes; the blog covers drink recipes, ingredient dosage and sourcing. The two link to each other, so you can go from a story to a recipe.
Winter Melon Tea and Old-Fashioned Taiwanese Drinks: How Winter Melon Bricks Are Made, Where Winter Melon Lemonade Came From, and Herbal Tea, Star Fruit Juice and Sour Plum Drink
Key answer
Winter melon tea is the old-fashioned drink Taiwanese people grow up with, and it contains no tea leaves at all. Winter melon is peeled, seeded and cut, then slow-cooked with sugar into winter melon bricks; boil a brick with water and you have winter melon tea, with a caramel aroma. The sugar bricks keep for more than a year. Farming villages long drank it to cool off in summer, and a winter melon tea shop in Anping, Tainan, has passed its craft down five generations. Drink shops later added lemon to make the popular winter melon lemonade. Taiwan’s other old-fashioned drinks include herbal tea, star fruit juice and sour plum drink. Tang Sugar supplies winter melon tea bricks and winter melon syrup so drink shops overseas can make old-fashioned Taiwanese flavors.
A Taiwanese summer and a roadside cup of winter melon tea
Before air conditioning was common, Taiwanese people cooled off in summer with winter melon tea, herbal tea and marble soda from roadside stalls. Winter melon is easy to grow and cheap, and cooked into tea it’s sweet without being cloying, so it became the most common drink in villages and outside temples. Today, its retro charm and deeply Taiwanese flavor have made winter melon tea a favorite with foreign visitors too (further reading: Taiwan’s guzaowei flavors).
How are winter melon bricks made?
Step
What happens
1. Prepare the melon
Winter melon is peeled, seeded and cut into pieces
2. Slow-cook
Sugar is added and cooked for a long time until it caramelizes
3. Shape
Once thick, it’s poured into molds and cooled into winter melon sugar bricks
4. Make the tea
A brick is boiled with water and cooled to make winter melon tea
Some traditional methods first soak the melon in limewater to firm the flesh and keep its texture. Winter melon sugar bricks grow more fragrant with age and keep for more than a year, which makes them easy to ship and export (further reading: what winter melon tea is and whether it has caffeine).
Taiwan’s old-fashioned drinks
Winter melon tea: Winter melon slow-cooked with sugar, with a caramel aroma; add lemon and it becomes winter melon lemonade.
Herbal tea: A cooling tea boiled from several herbs, drunk in summer.
Star fruit juice: Made from pickled star fruit — sweet, sour and a little salty.
Sour plum drink: A cooling drink boiled from smoked plums and hawthorn.
Old-fashioned drinks are a memory all Taiwanese people share, and they give Taiwanese drink shops overseas a distinctive menu. Caitang International Co., Ltd. (brand name Tang Sugar) is proud of these old-fashioned flavors and supplies:
