Explore Pinglin’s Mountain Tea Charm: A Fun One-Day Town Getaway

Text by MOOK Scenic Spots Family Compilation & Report
 
Located between Taipei and Yilan, right through the middle of the Xueshan Tunnel, New Taipei City’s Pinglin District boasts lush green landscapes surrounded by mountains and rivers, resembling an ink-wash landscape painting—absolutely breathtaking. This weekend, take your family for a stroll in Beitou.

Pinglin’s hidden gem—Kuolai, a spot that rivals Hualien’s Mugu Muyu, offers views of the emerald waters of Beishi Creek, schools of fish swimming, dense forests, and the sounds of insects and birds. Birds like kingfishers, bamboo partridges, and damselflies are very easy to spot here. Of course, Pinglin isn’t just about experiencing the tranquility and beauty of Kuolai—it also has the lovely campus of Kuolai Elementary School waiting for visitors to explore.

Pinglin Old Street seems full of hidden talents—tea baskets, straw sandals, all kinds of cold-brewed teas, and even traditional tea-drinking methods are preserved. Pinglin is a tea town, so the old street must showcase features that reflect that identity. Nowadays, the few remaining tea houses on Pinglin Old Street are traditional tea wholesalers, with tea packed in cloth sacks, each sack weighing a hundred jin. Even today, they retain the ancient method of tea trading and tasting—brewing tea in bowls and using spoons to evaluate the tea. The tables are often lined with rows of tea bowls, allowing you to taste five or six different kinds of tea at once.

Pinglin’s quaint tea museum is Taiwan’s first museum dedicated to tea. Its Minnan-Anxi style courtyard architecture gives a sense of the serene beauty of a traditional garden. The comprehensive exhibition area uses models and real objects to display the tea-making process and introduces the history of Chinese tea production, tea utensils, and tea drinking etiquette. The activity exhibition area hosts irregular displays of tea-related artworks. Additionally, there is a tea art area centered around the Bamboo Tower and Yueming Tower.

Pinglin is a renowned production area for Taiwan’s Wenshan Baozhong tea and the main water source of the Beishi Creek, nurturing rich ecological resources, a simple tea town culture, and many mountain-town artistic charms, earning it the reputation of Taipei’s backyard garden.