January 3, 2024 – Chenggong – Taitung – 66kms – Home Rest Hotel

January 4, 2024 – Taichung – Anshuo – 66kms – Lao Fan Home

Most afternoons Gord and I do as the  Taiwanese do and stop for a bubble tea. Ordering it, however, is more challenging than ordering a  large soya decaf latte in Starbucks.  I’m never certain what I will get. My favourite so far is a half-sweet milk tea with brown sugar soaked tapioca pearls. Sucking these sweet tapioca bubbles up the extra large straw makes tea drinking more of a sport than a drink. When the round little lovelies get wedged into the hole made by an ice cube you have to hunt for them.  The reward is the tasty Q factor that Taiwanese are mad about. 

In Taiwan many food labels sport a large Q on the packaging. Q roughly translates as al dente or springy and bouncy. Like Italian pasta, it’s important that the texture not be too  soft or hard. Whether it’s noodles, pudding, mochi, or jello; foods are judged here according to their Q. 

It turns out I have always been Q crazy without knowing it. It’s why I love custards, gummy bears and jello, but think rice pudding is revolting. Bubble or pearl tea is just perfect for me. I was also delighted to discover you can order a hot or cold bubble coffee. The Q here could either be from coffee jelly (literally coffee with gelatine) or tapioca soaked in coffee. 

Today my order was lost in translation and I ended up with taro pearls in hot flavoured taro milk. It was great. 

While I was buying the tea Gord was making friends with a group of young people on holidays.  They recognized us from a town on the other side of the country and stopped to chat with Gord.  They invited us to come and stay with them if we passed through their town again.  This was our second fun connection with people on our ride today. As we were coasting down a big hill a car started slowly driving beside us filming us and waving .  The poor scooter that tried to pass Gord was confused as the car kept swerving to film us. At the base of the hill Gord stopped to take a photo and the car arrived and the photo shoot began. They must have taken at least five shots of each other posing in our helmets with our bikes. Hilarious!

Keeping with our hunt for Q, we stopped along the coast at a moshi store. Moshi is a Japanese sweet treat usually made from glutinous rice paste with a variety of fillings. We walked around sampling lovely bits of different types until we were a bit embarrassed and had to buy a box. Taiwanese mochi is the Q!