Friday, February 06, 2009

tea/coffee: i recommend ORANGE TEA MANIA



ORANGE TEA MANIA
or "JIU ZHI GONG FANG"
No. 94, Ming Shen E. Road, Sec 4
(02) 2715-1919

website: orangetea.com.tw

$

Kid friendliness: lots of fun drinks but be careful of the jellies and choking hazards

Visit reviewed: 12/18/2008



Shortly after I spotted the bright Orange Tea Mania sign near my grandma's house, I started seeing them everywhere. Is it a new chain that is expanding quickly around the city, or have I just been missing it until now? Offering a long list of teas and fruity drinks at ultra affordable prices (all around NT$35), Orange Mania takes its own spin it by offering a glut of jellies and even fresh passion fruit seeds. The Chinese name- "gong fang"- roughly translated could mean "factory," but google translated it as "mania" so that's what I'm going with- although both could work. Does anyone know for sure otherwise?



They make it easy for you by listing their top 10 drinks (well, in Chinese) as well as a huge picture of drink #1- the QQ fresh passion fruit tea, which has boba, coconut jelly and fresh edible passion fruit seeds in a passion fruit tea. It's a bit sweet and chewy and a great treat on a hot day if you're like me and love that you can get this sort of thing for US$1. The passionfruit seeds are sweet and tart and a bit crunchy and slimy (though you can't tell as much inside the drink), so that part may be a love it or hate it sort of thing. If you're more traditional, then you can stick to the "boba nai cha" or boba milk tea or other teas.


OTHER LOCATIONS (roughly translated from website)
No. 156, San Ming Road
(02) 2746-7979

No. 806, Bade Rd, Sec 4
at Sungshan Railway Station
(02) 2653-0033

No. 171, Mingquan E Road
(02) 2546-6768

Yanji shop
No. 169, Yanji St (Ren Ai Road, Sec 4)
(02) 2731-5500

No. 53-3, Da-an Road, Sec 1 (Chunghsiao East Road 4)
(02) 2777-1866

No. 152, Fuxing South Road, Sec 2
(02) 2703-6363

No. 3, Linjiang St. (Tonghua Night Market)
(02) 2700-6767

No. 387, Jhuangjing (near the World Trade Organization)
(02) 2345-1003

No. 55, Songlong Road
(02) 8787-0100

13 comments:

EatTravelEat said...

That is a interesting drink photo! I've never seen passion fruit seeds, coconut jelly, and boba all in just one drink. Must have been really flavorful!

immerever said...

I saw many small shops designated to sell various drinks!
These include tea with or without bubble jelly, and different juice of so many choices.


In many countries, street vendor food is common, but not drinks!

I now begin to wonder why.
Why did such drink shops become so common in Taiwan? and how are they so cheap?

Do you have any clue?

Anonymous said...

I am unfamiliar with these "San Ming", "Mingquan", "Chunghsiao" and "Jhuangjing" roads. Are they anywhere near Sanmin, Minquan, Zhongxiao, and Zhuangjing roads?

Anonymous said...

To not be a dick for a moment, as much as I love your blog it makes my eyes bleed trying to figure out the names of basically everywhere you post about. Would it be too much to ask for you to, you know, use the right names for things? I mean, I can understand street names, it's not like they're not on every street sign or most maps - oh wait - and as for place names, it's not like there's no single, internationally recognized, easy-to-convert-to romanization system, which just happens to be the same one now being encouraged by the Ministry of Education and the Ma administration or anything.

Anonymous said...

While in Taiwan last year I saw that tea shop, there was one in Danshui and another in a nightmarket that I went to near the NTU campus. It's probably not a new place but it was tasty (and pretty sweet) so I'd ask for no sugar in my drink because everything else in that cup is already sweetened. Oh how I miss the nice drinks in Taiwan!

joanh said...

EatTravelEat: yeah, it was definitely more like a meal!

immerver: Probably a combination of cost of living and competition/supply and demand. I don't know! Would be really interesting research.

Anonymous 1 & 2: Wow. Angry much? (1) Take up your beef with Google Translator (2) You want to figure out the address, go to the website that I've included and look it up in Chinese there or call the restaurant (3) It's a pain in the ass for me to find and translate all these addresses in the first place, so you'll have to deal with all the discrepancies as I don't have time to figure out what every single street should be named since I didn't take Romanization classes here. (4) Would you rather not have the address?

Annieahh: Yeah, the drinks can be pretty sweet. Thanks for reading and your comment!

Anonymous said...

To anonymous

why can you be polite about things, blogs are peoples hobby, enjoyment, they're not making money off doing this or even advertising for the places she goes to.

a free opinion for people, you can read it or not, if not happy, go elsewhere. you can ruin a person's day with your attitude.

Joan, i enjoy reading your blog, i'd wish you'd do it more often, but people are busy, i understand that. i may not go to the places you go to, but i enjoy seeing the variety that you go to. i hope this one person does not deter you from keeping up the good work.

K

Anonymous said...

would love to read about ur food experiences in bali too joanne

Anonymous said...

there is one in tianmu at the corner of zhongshan n. rd. sec. 6 and tianmu e. rd. we all just call it the orange drink place haha. i love their passion fruit qq green tea, but with low sugar (30%). their grapefruit green tea and grapefruit red tea are also worth a try. their qq milk tea is a bit fruity. i'm not a huge fan of everything else on the menu, but i'm glad they have frequent customer cards.

Anonymous said...

The name of this Orange "Jur Zir" sounds familiar. I may have encountered one in Gonguan area.

As far as the other person who asked why tea shops are so many....Taiwan is a tea growing country. Other than cooking with tea leaves and making spices/fragrances with it, it's pretty much a national drink.

Lots of varieties, and rich in tea history and culture, it's no secret that it is a multi million/billion dollar industry. Lots of competition breeds innovation and creativity. There are places that I thought were amazing, but yet fail to survive in the market (or have to relocate) like Mr Wish Tea in Taipei/Taichung.

However the birthplace of tapioca milk tea (icetea.com.tw) is still around, and excellent. More like a restaurant chain now, but very elegant on the inside. Taipei has several locations (chun shui tong).

Anonymous said...

omg i love your blogs :) , i usually go taiwan with my mom every year since she was from taiwan before she moved to the U.S now i'm going back alone along with a few other friends this year as a graduation present :) . thank you~ i really want to try out the food you posted !~ it's making me want to go back now x3. thank you ~~

alai said...

工房 = workshop

@immerever: Lots of street vendors of drinks in Mainland China and HK as well. There're probably more in TW/HK simply because it's so hot and people do not drive as much. ANd they're cheap because ingredients are cheap.

Also, nciku.com, dict.cn, and iciba.com are all better for looking up Chinese translations than Google itself.

Baby Madison said...

anonymous sounds like an ignorant American prick!!! i love the blog so much... it's like a reference guide for me too!!!

:)