The Girl Who Ate Everything

Click to enlarge! This map lists the cafes I mention in this post. You may as well just skip reading this post! Haha! ...Please don't. This map has multiple layers, to be used in future posts.

UPDATE (11/20/16): Cat.jpg Cafe has moved. I've updated the map above and the information about the cafe in the post below.

UPDATE (5/19/16): Cafe Kafka has closed! :(

"Be careful. Taipei is a petri dish for addiction...to cafes."

No one warned me about this before I moved to Taipei in August 2014 to learn Chinese, but even if someone did, I wouldn't have believed them. I spent the first 29 years of my life indifferent to coffee and the places that specialize in it, and, by God, I had to keep that streak going, for some reason. Taipei's cafes couldn't change that. Not with their cozy decor. And their cool art. And their hip music. And their freshly baked desserts. And their cute menus. And their Wi-Fi. And their air conditioning. And their cats.

LATTE LATTE LATTE LATTE

Less than a month after living in Taipei, I developed a near latte-a-day habit. Things escalated quickly.

Here's a flowchart that illustrates the inner workings of my decision-making process:

Click to enlarge!

For me, the catalyst of my cafe addiction was taking beginner intensive classes at the Mandarin Training Center. Memorizing traditional characters every day was pounding my brain into a frothy garbage mush of frustration and despair. When I couldn't focus, I'd fall asleep. I fell asleep a lot. I needed a place that would motivate me. Perhaps...a place with cake. And beverages enhanced with sugar and milk. And a closing time before which I have to get my shit done.

I could also blame my friends for encouraging my cafe-going habit, but that would be unfair. I'm not a sheep. I have volition. Or half a volition. I CAN STOP WHENEVER I WANT TO. Because if there's anything addicts are good at, it's stopping.

Many of my friends and classmates thought I was addicted to lattes. BUT NO sort of. The lattes enabled the cafe addiction. I've spent my whole life thinking black coffee tastes like poison sewer drainage. Then, during the developmental stage of my cafe addiction, I found if you temper the poison sewer drainage with a tub of steamed milk and a scoop of sugar, it transforms into something that tastes good to my infantile palate. (I still think black coffee tastes like poison sewer drainage.) And thus lattes became my default drink. There was a week where I dabbled in only ordering non-coffee drinks because I thought drinking coffee coupled with simmering in Taipei's oppressive summer humidity was making me smell extra pungent, but no other drink could match the goodness of a latte. If lattes were making me smelly, then too bad, innocent bystanders who enjoy breathing through their noses, because I'm gonna stink it up.

Taipei is flush with indie cafes, my neighborhood especially. During my ten-month stay in Taipei, I lived in Daan near two major universities, Shida (National Taiwan Normal University) and Taida (National Taiwan University). Where there are universities, there are thousands of students who need caffeine and places to study. I had a mission to try as many cafes as possible, but after a few months I got used to my regular cafes and stopped exploring. There are surely more awesome cafes near Shida and Taida that I never tried.

Although this post is about my favorite cafes, it doesn't have much to do with coffee quality. I don't know how to rate coffee. (It's brown. And it's hot. Or it's cold. It's a brown liquid with a temperature.) I just know how to rate environment, attitude, music, non-coffee food, and opening hours on a super subjective scale. Also, cats. Cats are a factor. I figure the coffee quality at these cafes is all good or better.

Some of the information I list for each cafe might be outdated, like prices or menu items, considering I haven't been to some of these cafes in almost a year. If you want to help update anything, please let me know in the comments!