How could Dadaocheng afford such ornate buildings? The answer is a leaf. This street’s wealth came from tea.
1867 to 1869
The British merchant John Dodd trial-sold oolong tea in Macau in 1867 and succeeded Fact. The following year, 1868, he brought craftsmen from Xiamen and Fuzhou to refine oolong and began exporting to America under the name "Formosa Oolong" Fact. Then in 1869 he shipped 2,131 piculs of tea directly to New York on two vessels Fact. That shipment was well received, Taiwan’s tea boom began, and Dodd came to be called the father of Taiwan oolong Fact.
Why here of all places
Tea bushes do not grow in Dadaocheng. The industry centred on this street because of position. After Tamsui opened in 1860 this riverside wharf became Taipei’s gateway, so leaf from the northern hills gathered here to be refined, packed and loaded Fact. Dadaocheng was not a growing region but a node of processing and export Estimate.
The smell left on the street
You can still verify this layer by nose. Old tea shops around Dihua Street continue their own roasting, and at the right hour the smell drifts into the street Fact. That roasted note, mixed among the dried herbs and dried fish, is evidence that the 19th-century export port has not entirely ended Estimate.
What the wealth left behind
What matters is where the money went. Capital from the tea trade turned into buildings — the shophouses stacking four eras on one street, which you will read next Estimate. And as Ep.8 shows, that wealth funded not only buildings but ideas and movements.