Tea Time in Taiwan - Bada Forest • Oh Snap! Let's Eat!

I’ve spoken of Bada Forest in Pingtung, Taiwan before in a previous post. Well, I got to visit it again a second time. This time we had the chance to enjoy some tea in a forest of Mahogany trees.

Bada Forest Paradise, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

I don’t mean we sat there and dipped some tea bags in a mug and called it ‘tea time’. I mean we did the whole Tao of Tea (茶道). The word Tao (sometimes spelled Dao) means “the way” or “the philosophical concept”. I couldn’t recall all the different steps, but it was something similar to the Gongfu Tea Ceremony. If you’re too lazy to click on that link, there’s basically complex procedures for:

Preparation of the Tea
Brewing the Tea
Serving
Aroma Appreciation (smelled very good!)
Appreciation of the Tea Leaves at the end
Clean up!

Tea Time in Bada Forest of Taiwan

Tea Time at Bada Forest Paradise

Now for one of my favorite parts: Snacks!!
The snacks available from the vendor in the forest:

Dried Shitake Mushrooms
Dried (another type of) Mushrooms
Dried Roselle Flowers (google image them! they’re pretty!)
Dried Okras
More dried snacks!

I can’t describe how yummy these were. They were crunchy and didn’t really taste like what they normally taste like (well, I don’t really know what Roselle Flowers taste actually but still).