Stirring Point

I get it. I understand the hype. It’s not the neon signs flooding the downtown streets. Nor is it the narrow towers and low buildings all smashed together in a bouquet of steel. It’s the little things, the details bleeding through. The microcosmic streets with their bakers, baristas, and shoe repairmen; the smells wafting from the grills of the night-market vendors. It’s all here—everything one needs, stuffed between the corners and stop lights. The Brooklyn of Asia, with a style that’s hip as hell.

They told me it was cool: the food, the coffee, the art, the fashion. Having just arrived from Beijing, Taipei popped with individualism like a firework to the face. It’s a collision of East and West, a melding of hemispheres, a cultural Prime Meridian.

From stinky tofu to bubble tea, the flavors and textures of Taipei are an all-out blitz on foreign taste buds. Hotpot, silken tofu, roasted street corn, taro, sweet potato puff balls—my god. Beef soup with hand-pulled noodles, Taiwanese fried chicken, grilled squid slathered in wasabi dressing—where does it end? Every block is an ocean of temptation. Bao buns stuffed with lamb, dumplings packed with pork and chives; morsels, morsels, morsels! They’re everywhere and begging to expand the waistline. 

And the coffee. Dear lord. Is it the best in Asia? Maybe the world? The cafes are endless, with some carrying grand trophies of international praise. Their menus offer cups of “Sol Naciente Washed Geisha from Cusco, Peru” or “El Triunfo Bourbon Aji from Huila, Colombia.” I order the Geisha and hand over $15 dollars. $15 for a cup of coffee! I walk to the side and watch as the barista drizzles boiling water on my V60 pour over like she’s diffusing a bomb. I study her concentration. A flick of the wrist sends a thin stream spilling from the gooseneck kettle. Bubbles appear in the grounds and she pauses, waiting for their gases to release. Another flick. Then once more. The glass basin fills with a malt-colored liquid that’s barely transparent. Ah, perfection. That’s what I’m paying for: the obsessive details of a perfectionist culture. The first sip is divine. The second one is pure bliss. With eyes aloft, I stare at nothing. No phone, no book, no playlist or person. I sit with my face toward the sky, indulging in the caramel notes and apricot highlights. The height of perfection. 

Perfection is one of Taipei’s many strengths. It takes flavor profiles and style patterns and runs them through a local palate. Cunning eyes and refined taste buds twist something good until it’s great. The hours of tinkering, adjusting, and repositioning are found in every sip and bite. The masters rise to the top while market forces weed out the rest. Cafes feel more like art galleries than filling stations. 

I pop into Vinyl Decision, a record shop with a reputation for its curation of albums. I order coffee and start my long peruse through the thousands of sleeves lining the walls. Obscure Japanese imports, hip-hop gems impossible to find stateside, quirky soundtracks from 1970s Hollywood cinema. It’s a collector’s dream. Pull down an album, hand it to the barkeep, and watch him cue it up on the store’s retro speakers. They’re classics, and they’re all for sale. Good luck walking out empty-handed.

Curation and refinement tell us something about a culture. Priorities are found in the results of painstaking effort, arriving in the world by form, function, feel, and essence. Sometimes perfection manifests as art; sometimes it arrives in haute consumerism. But the care put into an idea tells us something about the creators and the appreciators alike. Good or bad, it gives us a peek into the world of another, if only for a moment, and if only for a flavor. For a traveler, that’s ultimately what we seek—a peek into another’s world—a small taste of their daily life.