The Best Souvenirs to Buy in Taiwan

Pete and I loved our all-too-brief visit to Taiwan a couple of years back. We enjoyed sightseeing in Taipei, visiting Maokong via cable car and exploring the beautiful Taroko Gorge National Park. We bought home tea and pineapple cakes, but wish we’d known to look out for the rest of these great souvenir suggestions from fellow travel bloggers.

The Best Souvenirs to Buy in Taiwan

Candy / Confectionery | Cat Socks | High Mountain Oolong & Other Teas | Kaoliang Liquor | Penis Cakes | Pineapple Cakes | Pink Heart Filter Cigarettes | Traditional Tea Sets

Candy / Confectionery

I have a thing about grocery stores when I’m traveling. There’s nothing better to me than wandering through endless aisles of interest foodie items that I’ve never seen before. So when I landed in Asia for the first time, in Taiwan, I couldn’t wait to see what treasures I could find.

Like many countries, Taiwanese people love their sweets! Alongside some local music instruments and clothing, I hauled a huge bag of unusual treats back home for gifts and souvenirs. There are lots of sweets to try on the streets that are best eaten right away, like tofu pudding called Douhua.

But the packable ones include moon cakes filled with bean paste and stamped with Chinese characters. These baked goods are found fresh during the mid-fall moon festival, but you can get them in stories year-round. I also brought back pineapple jam cakes, stretched sugar lollipops and bags of oolong tea.

Eileen blogs at Pure Wander. Find her on Instagram.

Cat Socks

You just never know where you’ll find the perfect souvenir. In this case, it got away from me at the Shilin Night Market in Taipei. I was with a group, and everyone stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the darling cat motif socks. I adored them but kept finding reasons not to get them. I think the bargained price was three pair for US$10.  What was I thinking?  Why didn’t I buy? They were so easy to carry – they took up no space at all! I could have given a pair to each of two granddaughters and kept a pair for myself. And they were even all cotton.

Fortunately, I got a great photo of them, but it only makes me want to kick myself harder. Interestingly, they were made in Korea but if I’d bought them in Taiwan, they would have remained in my mind as a souvenir of that country. What was I thinking? I blame jet lag.

Carole blogs at Travels with Carole. Find her on Instagram. 

High Mountain Oolong & Other Teas

Oolong has long been my favourite type of tea. After trying a particularly magical high mountain oolong from Taiwan, I have sought out and prized Taiwanese oolong above all.

When we finally made it to Taiwan last year, I made sure to seek out Taiwanese teas during our visit. We took the glass-bottomed Gondola cable car from Taipei to nearby Maokong, a tea-producing village in the lush green mountains to the east of the city. There, we ate dishes laced with local tea at a tea cafe, and browsed in the shops for souvenir teas.

We also made a trip down to Taroko Gorge National Park. After telling our guide of my love for Taiwanese tea, he took us to a small shop specialising in mountain oolongs. As we sipped samples of some of their teas, the shopkeeper showed us photos of the tea being grown, harvested and processed, before we made our choices of teas to bring home.

Quality and flavour of oolongs is variable, so I recommend finding a shop where you can sample different varieties before you buy.

Me, Kavey, here at Kavey Eats. Find me on Instagram. 

Kaoliang Sorghum Wine / Liquor

Most people think of tea or pineapple cakes as traditional food souvenirs from Taiwan, but to be a true local you must buy Kaoliang liquor for that special someone back home. This fiery alcohol made from sorghum can be found at every corner 7-11 and in bulk at the supermarket. This is the adult drink of choice in Taiwan for festivals, barbeques and game playing. 

The most popular kind of Kaoliang is a bottle of “58” or 58 proof fermented sorghum wine. The first time I tried it I thought I might spontaneously combust! The flavour from this crystal clear distilled liquor is much stronger than a rice wine like sake or the Korean soju but with a similar smooth aftertaste. To drink Kaoliang, a small shot is often poured at room temperature. Another way to try Taiwan’s most popular alcohol is chilled because the alcohol content content prevents freezing and makes for a smoother drink, especially in Taiwan’s hot summer months. 

My favorite way to drink Kaoliang liquor, however, is as a mixer similar to vodka. For a real treat and taste of Taiwan, try making a cocktail with fresh pineapple juice and garnish with a slice of lime and a cherry. If you really want to bring someone a unique food souvenir from Taiwan, look no further than your local convenience store for a bottle of Kaoliang.

Cerise blogs at Enchanted Vagabond. Find her on Instagram. 

Penis Cakes

If you are looking for a souvenir that is a little racier than the standard Taiwanese pineapple cakes, look no further than a box of giant, anatomically correct, penis shaped cakes.

The cakes originated at an infamous (and controversial) food stall in Shilin Night Market, the largest and most popular night market in Taipei. Aptly called “A Piece of Gayke” (大雕燒), the stall serves a variety of penis-shaped foods, including penis popsicles and hot dogs.

The boxed cakes are plastic wrapped and suitable for taking back home as a souvenir. Each box comes with two tasty, 18-centimeter phalluses, with flavors such as sesame and peanut, raspberry, blueberry, pomelo, and honeymelon.

Shilin Night Market is a maze, but you can find the cakes more easily in Ximending Night Market, a pedestrian shopping district that is open in the daytime as well, near Ximen MRT exit 6.

Nick Kembel blogs at Spiritual Travels. Find him on Instagram. 

Pineapple Cakes

Have you tried pineapple cakes? They’re one of the best souvenirs to buy from Taiwan. This popular and delicious pastry has a buttery and crumbly shell (like a shortbread cookie) and is stuffed with pineapple filling. You can choose a sweet or sour type of pineapple cake. We like the sour one as it isn’t too sweet and has a more natural pineapple flavor. Some pineapple cakes’ fillings are mixed with wintermelon but it’s seen as lower quality. There are other unique flavors such as cranberry and egg yolk.

Pineapple cakes are easy to find in supermarkets, shopping centres, and speciality stores and they are available in Taiwan’s airports as last minute gifts before departure. The more well known brands cost about $10-$15 USD for a box of 10. Don’t forget to eat them quickly as they are perishable.

Our favorite brand is SunnyHills due to the crispy shell and sour pineapple filling. You can find them at their store in Nantou City along Road 139 or at the Taoyuan International Airport, Terminal 2, 2nd floor before crossing the security check.

Jackie blogs at Life of Doing. Find her on Instagram. 

• Try our authentic recipe to make your own Taiwanese pineapple cakes.

Pink Heart Filter Cigarettes

OK, so we don’t want to condone smoking here, but even non-smokers can appreciate how cute these La Rose Taiwanese cigarettes are. As a rare social smoker who prefers extremely light, girly menthols, these are my go-to cigarettes in Taiwan.

I usually bring a few packs of these back to Canada when I visit home (I’ve been living in Taiwan for 10 years), and they are always a huge hit among my friends there. Not only are menthol cigarettes no longer sold in Canada, but most Canadians have never even seen “popper” cigarettes that are the big trend in Taiwan and other Asian countries these days, with a little ball in the filter that you squeeze and pop for an added blast of menthol.

These dainty, ultra slim, ultra light cigarettes come in a pretty pink package, and as if that weren’t impressive enough, each cigarette has a pink heart-shaped hole cut into the filter.

At only NT110 ($3.50) they make a cute, light, and very cheap souvenir that is sure to make jaws drop. The cigarettes are available at all 7-11s and Family Marts, and if they are too girly for you, you can also go for other flavored cigarettes, such as orange or mojito, which come in handsomer packages.

Nick Kembel blogs at Spiritual Travels. Find him on Instagram. 

Traditional Tea Sets

For a Taiwan souvenir that can range from purely functional to fine art, consider a traditional Chinese tea set. Used for preparing gong fu cha (Chinese tea ceremony), a typical set may include a teapot (used for brewing the tea), tiny tea cups, a gaiwan (a cup that usually comes on a saucer and has a lid but no handle, used for brewing, serving, or drinking tea), and a tea tray to place all the items on.

The best place in Taiwan to buy tea sets is on the Yingge Pottery Street in New Taipei City. Here you can find an unbelievable variety of teaware, including dirt-cheap functional ceramics, portable tea infuser bottles, Yixing teapots (the classical, unglazed variety), and ceramics so gorgeous they belong in a museum. In fact, there really is a whole museum devoted to ceramics in town. When my sister got married, my wedding gift was a gorgeous tea set purchased in Yingge!

Nick Kembel blogs at Spiritual Travels. Find him on Instagram. 

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Find more of my posts on the best souvenirs to buy around the world.

With many thanks to all my contributors for helping me to compile this guide to the best souvenirs to buy in Taiwan. All images are by the authors of the relevant entry, unless credited otherwise. 

Please check the customs restrictions of your home country before your trip, so that you know which food and drink souvenirs you are permitted to import.