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Legend has it that the great Emperor Shennong tasted a hundred herbs, and only afterward did agriculture and medicine develop. Next to Sanyu Temple in Tianmu, Taipei, where Emperor Shennong is worshipped, a grocery store inherited from a grandmother has been transformed into an herbal tea shop called "Sanyu Hao," offering passersby a cooling, thirst-quenching cup on the bustling street.

Grandma's grocery store becomes a petite, charming herbal tea shop

Taking bus 616 all the way to Tianmu, past the Taipei American School and Taipei Japanese School, getting off at Sanyu Temple stop, and walking into the herbal tea shop on the street corner, the shop owner, Ms. Zhou, and her sister, along with tea brewer Su Lizhong, are preparing offerings. The elder sister, Zhou Peiyi, pours the cooled double-herb tea into a large bottle, while the younger sister, Zhou Yijing, and Su Lizhong take bottles and dried fruit and head to Sanyu Temple, not far next door, to pay respects to Emperor Shennong.

Sanyu Hao is not big, but it is the place Zhou Yijing and Zhou Peiyi know best. "This used to be Grandma's grocery store. When I came home from school as a child, I would sit on that chair by the door and chat with classmates," Zhou Yijing recalls. Now the original grocery store space has been divided into three parts: her younger brother sells chicken cutlets on the side near Sanyu Temple, while she and her second sister, Peiyi, have opened an herbal tea shop on the other side.

Walking into Sanyu Hao, the most fitting description is "petite and charming." The small space can hold about 8 to 10 people, with only seats and no tables. Zhou Yijing explains that this is meant to create the feeling of sitting in front of a temple entrance, chatting and enjoying snacks. For elderly people who have difficulty moving their knees or legs, there is also a higher seating area in the back.

A new food-and-agriculture base embodying the spirit of Emperor Shennong

Sanyu Hao has been open for less than a year. When Zhou Yijing first told her friend Su Lizhong about the idea of opening a shop, the two saw Emperor Shennong worshipped at Sanyu Temple next door and thought of the legend of Shennong tasting a hundred herbs, and so the idea of an herbal tea shop was born. Su Lizhong also became Sanyu Hao's tea brewer.

Su Lizhong, who has a background in entomology, previously worked in the restaurant industry, and later focused on food and agriculture education, says that he used to be accustomed to engaging with ecology and nature, and then gradually learned through food and agriculture education how to engage and interact with people. In the process, he met many farmers and local residents with traditional skills, and learned from them how to coexist with the land.

After meeting people from all kinds of backgrounds and promoting food and agriculture education on the front lines for several years, Su Lizhong wanted to consolidate his past experience in food and agriculture education. It happened that his friend Zhou Yijing wanted to open a shop, and Su Lizhong believed: "To consolidate and organize what food and agriculture education has touched on, you need a base to properly present it, and tea drinks are one of the media closest to daily life." Sanyu Hao thus became a medium for sharing the connection between food and land with everyone through actual products.