A husband and wife who fly CA ride a motorcycle all over Taipei, China selling coffee
On a 12-year-old Wild Wolf motorcycle hung with anti-nuclear flags and land justice headbands, a full set of pour-over coffee equipment sat on an action crate mounted on the rear rack. "I want to give people a choice, so that those who can only afford to spend 50 yuan on coffee won't have only 7-ELEVEN to turn to." The young barista "AA" opened a motorcycle coffee shop at the roadside, selling single-origin, flavored, hot and iced coffee - every cup for just 50 yuan. When the conversation got lively, "AA" would grab the coffee pot and give customers unlimited refills.
Although it is a motorcycle coffee stand, "AA" is very serious and particular about brewing every cup of coffee. After a customer orders, he grinds the beans on the spot with a hand-cranked grinder, and the fresh, rich aroma immediately fills the air, then he carefully pours each cup by hand. If a customer orders iced coffee, he places ice cubes directly on the dripper, letting near-zero-degree ice water draw out the flavor of the original beans. To avoid coffee beans of different roast levels interfering with each other's flavors, he even prepared two grinders, grinding dark-roast and light-roast beans separately.
"A customer once told me, 'Young people today have only two paths: one is to work for yourself like you do; the other is revolution.'" At 3 p.m. on a Taipei street, the roar of excavators from MRT construction rose and fell, drowning out the sound of customers ordering. When the din of "AA" and other machinery had passed, he continued: "Of course coffee shops have asked me to be a barista, but that would mean losing my original intention."
AA, optimistically waging guerrilla warfare in the city (photo / Ho Hsin-chieh)
(This article was funded by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation for personnel expenses, but it did not interfere at all with news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring news independence.)