In 2001, HSU, CHUN-JUNG, HSU, TING-YEH’s father, resolutely ended his own tea cultivation and planted the coffee trees instead in the most dangerous Zhuowu Mountain at the southern tip of Alishan Mountain. At the beginning, he knew nothing about coffee, a totally layman for coffee. After five years of painstaking research and exploration, HSU, CHUN-JUNG attended to everything personally, from farm management, hand picking coffee beans to roasting coffee beans. In order to ensure the quality, HSU, CHUN-JUNG wearing courtesy glasses selected the coffee beans one by one, day and night. He finally won the first prize of “Domestic Specialty Coffee Beans Evaluation” and turned the strings of rubies into the masterpiece of Zhuowushan Farm.
Recalling the five years hard work of his father, HSU, TING-YEH said, “At that time, the green beans accumulated for two years and almost 700 kg, and we don’t know how to sell them.” For promoting their homegrown coffee beans, in 2007 HSU, TING-YEH open a coffee shop in the downtown of Chiayi and named the coffee shop Zhuo-Wu café. In addition to selling the drinks made from their own coffee beans, as time went by, they also have desserts, brunch, coffee equipment and coffee gift boxes.
Even with the honor of the first prize coffee beans, 許定燁 does not neglect the quality of the coffee in his café. He wants to be able to strictly control the coffee quality in the store, so he keeps studying and learning, and obtains coffee related certificates at home and abroad. He follows the trend to bring in “Nitro Coffee” and “Nitro Black Tea”. By putting nitrogen into the drinks, the surface of drinks will have fine and creamy foam, and adds the rich texture to the sweetness of the drinks.
In Zhuo-Wu café, you probably will not see ornate decoration and feel trendy atmosphere. But I can always feel the enthusiasm and contentment of the local farmers in Taiwan from the owner HSU, TING-YEH and by the reports and pictures of Zhuowushan Coffee Farm. Their spirit of tenacity and perseverance has transferred into unpretentious smell of coffee, and becomes an earnest solid life attitude.
