We were visiting Chiufen this morning as an ‘authentic Taiwanese experience’, which in many ways proved to be an apt description.
Chiufen or Jiufen means in Chinese – ‘share of nine’, refers to the nine families who founded this village on the steep slopes of a mountain. With the discovery of gold nearby at Jinguashi Chiufen became the centre of the prospecting industry and the population quickly grew in number and size. The gold seems to have run out fairly quickly although I haven’t been able to establish when.
The photo shows a monument to the gold -miners
Jinguashi also had a darker side, serving as a POW camp during WWII. POWs were brought here from around Southeast Asia and forced into hard labour; working in the copper mines at depths so low the temperature reached 104F.
Well it was a steep climb up numerous steps to the narrow streets lined with stalls selling all kinds of street food and souvenirs. The narrow streets were once laid with a narrow gauge railway to assist in the building of the gold mines.
We were making for what our guide described as “the Times Square of Chiufen” (See Photo). This morning it was a throng of tourists, mainly from a Japanese cruise ship moored across the harbour from the Balmoral.
The authentic experience mentioned centred on sampling Oolong Green Tea in the Teahouse shown in the photo. We were first shown how to brew the tea, not quite a full Chinese Tea Ceremony but noteworthy nevertheless. Hot water (It must be at 95C for the best results) was first poured into and on to all the small cups and tall tiny thimble shaped porcelain cups that are for smelling, not tasting the tea. The tea is Oolong tea, which means that after picking the top two leaves and a bud from the tea bush it is only semidried so retaining its green look but in a shrivelled form. With hot water the tealeaves rehydrate to almost their original size on the bush. I should add that the tea is grown in central Taiwan and picked by men and only men I was firmly told. I never did get an answer as to why men.
Rather bitter in taste, and clearly not relished by my fellow guests, such green tea is very good for the health as it is full of natural antioxidants. Taken with some sweet sesame snaps, a marzipan like substance and small plums I found the tea refreshing and acceptable.
Tea over and passing by the temptress (See photo) advertising the ladies toilet it was time to climb further up the steps to the summit and the main market lane that stretched for a kilometre and lined as I have said with all finds of food, leather, clothing and souvenir stools. No bargaining, well you might have got 5% if you were persistent but friendly and pleasant stall holders and the food stalls looked clean and enticing but not when stuffed full of a Balmoral cooked breakfast – ‘feed a cold and starve a fever’ is what my Mother always used to say.
So ended this short morning tour and with a cold that was beginning to stream I decided not to venture forth into Keelung in the afternoon which I may well regret but the seclusion of my cabin with some Cranberry & Raspberry tea – for the Vitamin C – seemed a better option
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