Masterful flavor
With his own passion for coffee, Chang decided to produce and sell it himself right there on out-of-the-way Mt. Hopao, long before the coffee craze hit. In 1984, he opened Coffee Bar-Den next to the Earth Mother temple, letting his product speak for itself to the viability of Taiwan-grown coffee.
"Ten-plus years ago, opening a coffee shop deep in the mountains here was like selling coffee in remote Mongolia! There were only a handful of households for miles around--selling two cups a day was harder than flying to the moon," he says wryly.
In 1985, Chang began to reap rewards for his efforts--his roast won a gold medal from a national gourmet organization. The next year, he was named one of ten "master farmers."
With faith in his simple idea, Chang completes the entire process himself, taking special care each step of the way. He plants the coffee plants and raises them organically. Then he harvests the beans, peels, dries, and shells them, roasts and grinds them, then finally brews his coffee. He may well be the only one in Taiwan who grows, produces, and sells his own coffee--a master coffee craftsman.
From his small shop, Chang began selling a NT$200 cup of coffee. He didn't need to worry about competition from international brands, and attracted many loyal customers. The media also rushed to cover the story of the shop promoting what it called "Yunlin coffee" or "Taiwanese coffee." In 1995, Bar-Den branched out from its base in the tiny township of Kukeng, opening shops in Taipei's Tienmu district and the famed Yungkang Street, as well as in Hsinchu, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. In all, it opened ten branches, making it a mid-sized business with 100 employees and producing 20,000 kilograms of coffee a year.
Making historical references, Chang sighs, "The eight-year war of resistance [against the Japanese] was nothing--I went through 18 years of hardship like Wang Baochuan [who waited for her husband, a Tang Dynasty general captured by the enemy]." Like coffee itself, the experience was bitter at first but became sweet with time.