Taichung Xinshe (台中新社) is famous for producing mushrooms. In fact, much of Taiwan’s mushrooms are produced here in the many farms around this area.
Our driver chose this particular mushroom farm for our visit.
The various types of mushrooms grown at the farm.
Mushroom-picking at this dark and moist environment, which is necessary for the mushrooms to grow.
The 4 tips for picking mushrooms. Rule no. 1: pick a mushroom whose cap diameter is wider than a finger; the bigger the cap, the better the choice.
Spent some time picking the bigger ones to bring home. The mushrooms were sold for NT$100 per jin (0.5kg).
P.S. The mushrooms survived the trip home and when we cooked them a good 2-weeks later, they still tasted fresh and yummy.
Lingzhi is a highly-regarded medicinal mushroom in traditional Chinese medicine. Here the locals can buy a pack of lingzhi with soil to be grown at home for NT$100.
Where the black fungus (a jelly fungus with potential medicinal properties) are grown.
The sales area where we were spoilt for choices. Shopping for food is one great hobby of ours. The zealous staff gave dried Shiitake mushrooms to sample. We had never tried eating them without cooking prior to this. It shouldn’t have tasted bad as our picky-eater of a little girl ate 5 in a row.
We ended up buying many packs of dried mushrooms home and would have gotten more mushroom-based snacks, if not for fear of our ever-growing luggage. Two examples of more uncommon snacks seen here are the mushroom jerky (did taste like real beef ones) and pumpkin floss.
Mushroom-flavoured savoury snacks were also sold here. We tried the deep-fried mushrooms, mushroom-flavoured tea leaves eggs and Chinese sausages. The deep-fried mushroom was a favourite among us as the mushrooms were very fresh. The tea leaves eggs had a hint of mushroom taste but we were unable to detect much mushroom flavour in the Chinese sausages. Mummy also tried their lingzhi water, which tasted slightly bitter but otherwise quite bland.
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Read more about our trip itinerary and the other places we visited during the trip in Taiwan 2016 – Family Trip Itinerary.
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Useful information
A-Liang Mushroom Farm (阿亮香菇园)
Web information (in Chinese only):阿亮香菇園(新社香菇園)