Traveling Through Time: A 1930s Shanghai-Style Café Appears in Taipei’s Alleys

Text by Coffee Stories Nonstop, Photos by Coffee Stories NonstopMysterious Café Facebook Fan Page

Today’s café interview started with a studio photoshoot...

This beginning may be quite unusual, but it was very real.
The stars were members of a Japanese underground visual kei band who looked like Korean idols.
Surrounded by a crew of staff, they shot rolls of film in this seemingly frozen-in-time scene.

Mysterious Café has that kind of charm—drawing people in.

This hidden café, tucked away in the alleys between Guting Station and TaiPower Building Station on the Taipei Metro, on Pucheng Street, feels like stepping through a time tunnel. From the outside, you’d never expect to find a corner that suddenly transports you to 1930s Shanghai.

With its varied lighting and unique corners, it’s like a film set themed around coffee—each area playing out its own scene, with every customer as the leading man or woman in this cinematic story.

A film director, a hairstylist, a marketing planner, and a coffee-loving young person—this group is like a film production crew, using premium coffee, tea, desserts, and whiskey to shoot one nostalgic scene after another.

This was my second visit to Mysterious. The first time, I wasn’t there for the fame, but to see an old university friend, Wenjun.

He is the owner and head barista of Mysterious Café. Back then, he wasn’t just a film director—his interests and ideals led him to step into the world of specialty coffee. By chance, he also met roaster Mr. Simon Hsieh.

The shared vision of these four people led to the opening of Mysterious Café and helped bring their coffee-film dream to life.

Mr. Hsieh’s coffee roasting has repeatedly passed the rigorous cupping evaluations of Coffee Review, an international authority on coffee quality. Scoring 97 points, his beans have put Taiwan’s high-level coffee roasting on the global map—and at Mysterious, you can taste that exceptional quality.

My friend went all out to play host, presenting me with a magical pour-over version—a special creation by Mr. Hsieh.

This masterpiece combines Yemeni Mocha, Panamanian Geisha, and Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from small farms. It blends the strengths of beans from different regions, aiming to deliver a coffee with perfect flavors in the first, middle, and aftertaste.

The first sip brings rich, bold cocoa notes, followed quickly by floral aromas bursting from the liquid—that’s the work of the Panamanian Geisha. Then the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe adds a sweet-tart brightness, enriching the coffee’s overall profile.

Next comes the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe as the star. The first sip reveals Mr. Hsieh’s signature bold cocoa tone, but the next reveals an underlying depth of bright, tangy sweetness—clear proof of masterful roasting.

Finally, the Kenyan AA fills the cup with intense aroma, followed by acidity and sweetness that give way to a soaring level of sweetness and a pleasant aftertaste. This ending is truly delightful.

When I asked Wenjun why he wanted to open this café, he told me—even though he’s never given up on filmmaking—he’s always dreamed of making a movie centered around coffee. It’s like returning to the most basic elements: a single cup of coffee evokes a nostalgic youth ballad, the first date of young lovers, their first taste of this Western-style novelty. That memory might stay with them forever, and such a vivid idea simply had to be captured on film.

Truly the ideal and attitude of someone in the imaging arts. And here, it’s where he began realizing that film dream—a dream that continues to unfold.

In addition, with ancestral roots in Gulangyu, Xiamen, he hopes to one day renovate an old traditional house and open a nostalgic café just like Mysterious.

From day to night, as time flows endlessly, the shifting atmosphere here truly makes you feel like you’re in a hidden paradise. The unending coffee film plays on, with each new customer bringing in the aroma of coffee, keeping the story alive.

[Mysterious Café]
Address: No. 30, Lane 4, Pucheng Street, Da’an District, Taipei City
Phone: 02-2369-1012
Business Hours: Tuesday–Sunday: 1:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Closed Mondays)
Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/cafechamber