Jiasian Taro Ice 甲仙芋冰

Where it comes from

The Commerce Development Administration describes several of the family shops. One began in the Japanese colonial era, in the Showa period, when Liu Ruiyuan (刘瑞源) opened the Ruihe store (瑞和商号) on Jiasian's Hean Old Street (和安老街) making shaved ice. In 1974 the second generation, Liu Jianfang (刘建芳) and his wife Zhuang Lihong (庄丽红), developed a taro ice from local betel-nut-heart taro (槟榔心芋) to set themselves apart, and named the brand Xiaoqi (小奇) after their eldest grandson.

Another shop started in autumn 1971 as the Venus ice parlour (维纳斯冰果室) diagonally across from Jiasian Elementary School, where Chen Shunfa (陈顺发) and Lin Suzhen (林素贞) made ice cream, taro-paste cakes and taro crisps from local taro; the shop changed its name several times before settling on Tongshuai (统帅). A third, beside the Jiasian Bridge (甲仙大桥) on Wenhua Road (文化路), belongs to the family that became the first in Jiasian to make taro cake (芋粿) when the opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway (南横公路) brought in large numbers of visitors; it later went on to handmade taro ice.

Flavour and texture

Chinese Wikipedia describes Taiwanese taro ice in general as fluffy and soft, sweet without being cloying, and sold in cube shapes, and names Jiasian as one of the districts whose taro goes into it. The Commerce Development Administration describes the Xiaoqi taro ice as dense and rich with a strong taro aroma. The Jiasian shops sell it alongside other taro foods such as taro sago soup (芋头西米露), taro pastries and pan-fried taro cake.