Chou Family Farm

As part of the subsidized trip to the Lantern Festival in HsinChu, we visited the Chou Family Farm in nearby Xinpu.  It is a working farm that also brings in tourists to supplement its operation.

 Their distinctive crop is a small bitter pear. (The other pear raised in Taiwan is a huge one with a brown skin.)

 The Chou family has been in the Xinpu area for a long time and as we waited to make pear jello there was plenty of time for the head of the family to tell his family history.

 Walking around the farm there were plenty of flowers around the orchard. Orange ones:

 Yellow ones:

 

Different orange ones:

 And Chartreuse ones:

 But these Chartreuse ones actually turned out to be white ones, only the leaves were chartreuse.

In about 1870's, chemists started making artificial colors and nowadays we have a whole palette of colors from the world of chemistry. But before then the world of color relied mostly on the flowers, so I think in older fiction there is a appreciation for flowers that we no longer have.

This farm also raised chickens and eggs. This set off a big discussion about "farm fresh" eggs .vs. those bought in the supermarket. There is actually a market for "first eggs". These are the first egg that a chicken lays. Each chicken only produced one in its lifetime, so these eggs are particularly expensive and considered the best. I confess that I really couldn't tell the difference.

 

The farm has website:    http://chouchia.okgo.tw/

Nearby the farm there was a Taiwan version of the Oscar Meyer hot dog vehicle.

Vitali is an old soda drink in Taiwan, not only does it have carbonation and sugar, but also B vitamins.