Domesticating the Foreign : Re-making Coffee in Taiwan

This article explores how coffee, as a foreign cultural import, is imagined, appreciated and localized in Taiwan. Until recently, coffee had been exotic to the Taiwanese consumers. The drink was brought to Taiwan by its former Japanese colonizer as a symbol of Western modernization. In the post-War Taiwan, coffee was considered a luxurious import and discouraged by the authority. It was Taiwan’s close political and economic relations with the US during and 1950s – 70s that attributed coffee’s common association with the ‘American dream’. Since the 1990s, chained coffee shops started to provide coffee at reasonable prices and turned coffee houses into popular meeting places in the cities. The changing meanings of coffee should be understood in the context of Taiwan’s political, economic and cultural transformation