Trifter

Read on to find out about a unique area of Taiwan known as Mao Kong! For tea drinking lovers, scenery lovers, and hiking lovers alike, I highly recommend an excursion to Mao Kong.

If you live in Taipei, this is an easy daytrip, requiring only a bus from Wanfang Community MRT station on the Muzha (Brown) line. This bus takes you right up to Mao Kong Cable Car station in about 20 minutes. Alternatively, you could just take the cable car right from Taipei Zoo station, or any of the cable car stations on that route.

I had found out about Mao Kong from some tourist map as a recommended day trip, and although it didn’t say much about the area, the tea garden phrase caught my eye and I immediately decided that I wanted to see them. Even though really, I had seen tea gardens before when I had visited Ping Ling for a day, I was hoping for a better experience, since while in Ping Ling I had ended up being rather startled by the lack of tea houses (only one, in the museum, and it was closed….), not to mention the lack of accessibility from a tourist’s point of view. Keep in mind Ping Ling is written up reasonably extensively in guide books, so you would expect at least something that would resemble a painless and enjoyable experience, rather than lots of meanderings, a closed tea house, very few restaurants, a bus that came only twice a day, and such like. (Although, to be fair, the tea fields were impressive and the shops were quite interesting.)

In contrast, Mao Kong, about which I could find very little information except for what one blogger on the “Taiwan is Beautiful” website had written up, turned out to be well worth going to and vastly superior to anything that I had seen in Ping Ling (well this at least is my opinion….). At any rate, based on what that blogger had written, at the very least I would find one place to have tea, as she had written about teahouses (plural), so hey, what was there to lose! This same blogger had also raved about the amazingingly refreshing local teas you could enjoy, and so even though that was probably not true at all, I wrote down the name of that tea, and the trip was planned!

Possibly, because of my typically low expectations when traveling to any place in Taiwan (this is my view only of course), I was too easily impressed, and the fact that there were signs, maps, regular buses, more than one restaurant, clearly marked trails, and even staff who spoke a bit of English was all it took for me to be pretty much blown away…..!

Well actually, it was good for quite a few other reasons as well. The trip there was straightforward, I only had to wander around a teeny bit to find the appropriate bus stop, the bus ride was only about 20 minutes, and the bus driver was very sensibly driving around corners up the mountain at a nice reasonable speed, not to mention the cliff-like drop offs here and there were actually quite well guarded by nice blindingly white (that is, easily visible!) concrete guardrails!

As well, when I got to Mao Kong, this was very easy to figure out, what with big signs and a HUGE cable car station with MAO KONG STATION written on it. That’s the sort of obvious information that is a nice bonus when traveling to some new, unknown place!

Plus, once I had arrived at my destination, there were literally dozens of teahouses to choose from right in the immediate vicinity. Not to mention an exciting looking, clearly marked hiking trail right in my line of vision as well. There was also a big, clear, English sign pointing the way to the MaoKong Information Centre. It was very strange not having to spend any time at all trying to work out a map, or bus stop, or……etc!

Well, seeing as how it was lunchtime, I went straight to one of the bigger tea houses, right next to the station, and sat down on some rock-seats at a rock-table and proceeded to order the local variety of tea as had been recommended by that oh so useful internet as well as some lunch (which was of course rice and stuff to go with it….in this case, some very good vegetables and some not quite as good egg dish). The waiter serving me was very good at translating things for me and at understanding the kind of tea that I wanted to try, even though he kind of kept giggling whilst taking down my order.

The tea turned out to be really really nice and amazingly refreshing. I was very pleasantly surprised. The various tiny tea cups and miniscule teapot and lots of hot water made for a very enjoyable little tea party that could last for a long long time if one so felt inclined

This all cost a reasonablish 20 dollars Cdn in total I suppose, which to me seemed okay for lunch and tea for 2. Then off I went to have a look at that hiking trail, a set of stairs going up one of the mountains past a tea field or two, and probably up to the top to some great view! I excitedly started up the mountain only to find out that actually this was the “Neverending Stairs” trail, and that the humidity was a bit much for doing strenuous stair climbing activity, and that the stairs also kept becoming narrower, steeper, and more uneven with each step. But I persevered, thinking “I’m almost there by now…!!!” and “there will be a great view at the top!”, but a good hour later when I finally got there, I am afraid to say there was no view at all, just an intersection of more trails going left, right, or down. Suffice to say that I was not too impressed by all of that, and back down I went, regretting the rather excessive exercise I was giving my poor (by now shaking!) knees and legs. Unless you can handle stair climbing for several hours, give this trail a miss.

Next, off I went to the Information centre, down a nice flat road, where I was able to see some pretty grand views of the mountains and valleys of this area, including a view of the city of Taipei (although the misty weather didn’t make for great pictures of this…). As well, while I as walking, I came upon Even More teahouses, I couldn’t believe it! It was quite the little industry here, and it was quite something to come upon so many little teahouses, literally hundreds of them, in the valley, in the mountain, along the street…..everywhere! Some were a bit ramshackly, some were really nicely set up, some were teensy, some seemed to be able to accommodate hundreds of people…it was amazing!

After strolling along for awhile, I eventually came to the information centre, which, by this time, was closed (that’s what I get for persisting in getting to the end of that hiking trail!), but I didn’t really care as I was enjoying the views and walk quite well enough on my own. So I kept strolling along, and after awhile I came upon a path that looked rather more interesting than the road (plus it didn’t have any stairs…!), and so I walked along it, with Narnia-like lanterns lighting my way (it was getting near dusk by now), and next thing I knew I was in a teahouse that could have doubled as a fairyland. Fairylights were strung everywhere on trees and houses alike, and little winding paths and stairs seemed to go everywhere. I decided to have another tea break, and soon I was following some waiter down all kinds of little stairs and past all kinds of little gazebo like structures with tables and chairs in them, until I ended up nearly at the bottom of the tea house grounds in my very own little gazebo to have my tea!.

This was the highlight of the day, what a place! This time, I had tea according to the exact ritual you are supposed to do when drinking tea here, guided by our waiter and by a handy little handout with all the pictures of each step of what to do nicely set out for tea-drinking newbies.

This is what you do, for those of you who may be interested in that kind of detail:

1. Rinse out the teapot, various cups, strainer, and straining container with boiling water
2. Measure loose tea of your choice with the special wooden measuring shovel into the teapot
3. Add hot water, block up the tea spout for better brewing, and allow to steep
4. Pour tea through strainer into pouring pot
5. Pour from pouring pot into the tall, thin, tea cups (in order to appreciate the aroma of the tea first for awhile)
6. Pour tea from the tall thin cups into the tiny round cups
7. Drink your tea!

For this second tea experience I tried a different kind of tea recommended to me by the waiter. It was not quite as good as the first type of tea I had, but it was still a very good, kind of earthy tasting tea.

As well, when you buy tea for two, you get the whole canister of tea, so that would also explain why 20 dollars for tea for 2 was about right for the cost.

Well, and that was that pretty much it! I walked off to get the bus back, but what with one thing and another kept going around the next corner to see what was there, as this was a truly fascinating area to walk around in. Needless to say, I came across dozens and dozens of more teahouses, all lit up with lights, and all crowded with people. I kept on walking as by then I had gone a good mile down that road, and it seemed logical that eventually I would get somewhere. Sure enough, after awhile there was a sign directing me to the cable car station. This was a long walk by the way, and in hindsight, it would have been a shorter walk to turn around and head back to Mao Kong station.

However, some other people were also walking in the same direction, and eventually we did indeed come to a (totally different) cable car station, but we were happy enough to be near public transportation of some sort. I simply used my MRT card to get on and off we swooped down the mountain, through 2 more cable car stations until we got to the end of the line (Taipei Zoo Station), where I disembarked, and walked a few steps more to the MRT station that connected to that particular cable car station.

If I were a guidebook writer, I sure would write up Mao Kong and leave out Ping Ling…..but hey, being a tourist and being an intrepid explorer are possibly two different things. At the very least, they both deserve a place in a guidebook about Taiwan, especially considering the importance of the tea industry for this country. Enjoy!