Cha for Tea @ Taipei

During our Taipei trip in June this year, our tea connoisseur friend, ZT introduced us to Cha for Tea, a place that sells and brews high quality tea and also serves healthy cuisine, with a good amount of vegetarian options :D 

So here we are, after a day's worth of adventure in Jiu Fen (Yesh, that is the quaint little town where we found a most delightful Tea House and had good conversations for a large part of the afternoon, as well as the humongous Matsutake mushrooms!) 

Above is the name of the place in Chinese - and in the Chinese language, the name can be quite a tongue-twister! In hanyupinyin, it is "Qi Cha Qu". Not easy to pronounce quickly and accurately :D 

Dash ordered a meal set which comes with a small glass of apple tea vinegar (see the little glass in the corner of the photo below - it looks like beer, doesn't it? The Taiwanese believe in drinking vinegar for health reasons and they also believe that it can help improve one's digestion too). With the glass, comes accompanied is an appetizer of chilled tofu with huaishan, a mountain herbal root vegetable. The tofu is so smooth and silky, with a nice twang of yuzu sauce. Most yummy! :D

Next up is a little bowl of wanton, also known as dumpling soup. (See picture below) The broth is infused with tea, and it is both light and yet tasty! Dash finished every drop of the most awesome broth!

And for Dash's main course, there was rice with this steamed miso fish with ginger slices and spring onions. (See picture below) This is so good that Dash could eat this everyday! In fact, while blogging about this now, Dash feels like cooking this now! (Dash and Ilya just acquired this jar of miso paste at the Japanese specialty shop in Singapore, and Dash can't wait to try making this dish! :D) 

And of course, a good portion of Taiwanese cabbage is a must! (See picture below) The Taiwanese variety of cabbage has a sweet undertone - and hence one could use it for both a savoury dish as well as for dessert :D And Dash enjoyed nom-ing on this very much :D Dash had planned to buy some of this Taiwanese cabbage back for her family, but we didn't manage to put grocery shopping on the tight schedule this time. Ah well, next time! :D

Ilya's course came with a steamed tofu and edamame with black bean sauce, and Dash can't help but to try this dish since she was curious about the sauce. The black bean sauce was not overly salty and complements the blandness of the tofu well. The black bean sauce is the secret weapon! 

Later in the week, Dash bought a jar of organic black bean and soba sauce at a farmer's market in Taipei. The jar is now sitting in the fridge and Dash has been using it for the base of a noodle soup - and OMG, it comes in so handy in home cooking for soups! :D 

What was not captured here in this photo series is the aftermeal tea that they serve. This is a tea house, so unsurprisingly, the meal would end with a nice cuppa of tea :D 

Overall the meal was filling yet light in taste since all dishes are steamed. Now, if Dash lives in Taipei, she could eat here everyday!