Entrepreneurs Invent New Tea-Flavored Pastry

TaiwanPlus News

Entrepreneurs facing losses during the COVID era invented a new tea-flavored pastry that's proving a post-pandemic hit.   For the original report in Hakka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Jedj3apfk

Transcript

00:00It's just around 12 kilometers from Taipei's city limits, but Sleepy Pinglin is a world from the

00:05urban rush. This is tea country, with the perfect climate for tea bushes to produce five crops a

00:10year. Four generations of the Fong family have made their livelihood harvesting and processing

00:16tea here, and they also run a local restaurant. For the latest generation, it was a quiet rural

00:22life until COVID-19. The pandemic shuttered the restaurant and left its livelihood uncertain.

00:29Then, Fong Chongyu remembered the little pastries his mother used to make for customers who

00:34came to buy tea, and an idea sparked in his head.

00:56But this wasn't his mother's recipe.

00:58Not exactly. To give the cakes a personal and a local touch, Fong put finely ground tea leaves

01:05into them. This took away some of the excess sweetness that some people don't like in egg

01:10yolk pastries, and added in the subtle flavors of his family's teas. Plus, it was a good way

01:15to sell more tea leaves beyond tea converseurs. He and his wife drove around Taipei, making

01:21deliveries to people working from home. And sometimes, the money was really good. But the fledgling

01:27business soon ran into a problem. Pastries like these are seasonal treats in Taiwan. They're

01:33associated with big holidays like the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Lunar New Year, times when

01:37many people gift each other whole boxes of pastry. Plus, most customers were friends, or friends of

01:44friends. Word of mouth only spread so far. Fong's wife became concerned at the state of the

01:49accounting books. But she had an idea.

01:51That idea has paid off. The vending stall is reaching more and more people, helping the tea side of the

02:17family business carry on, too, with the elegant flavors of the hills just outside Taipei reaching

02:23a broader audience. Scott Huang and John Van Trieste for Taiwan Plus.

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