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When in Tamsui, many visitors make a point of grabbing a cup of old-school sour-plum drink. Every shop’s recipe is slightly different, but Hsing Lung—made with plums from Nantou—has even lured Japan’s Shobunsha magazine across the ocean for a feature and is a favorite with both Japanese tourists and locals. Nantou Hand-Crafted Plums Become a Tamsui Taste “Hsing Lung” began as Tamsui’s first stationery store, a tiny shop that once sold a bit of everything. After big-box malls moved into town and shopping habits changed, the Nantou-born daughter-in-law Hsu Su-lien brought in plums hand-made by her family and transformed the business into a specialty store devoted to sour-plum drinks and plum products. Nothing in the shop contains saccharin or preservatives; the flavors are clean, neither cloying nor over-salted. In addition to the sour-plum tea brewed with perilla-plums, low-salt preserved plums, perilla-plums, and pitted plums are also best-sellers. Last spring Hsing Lung reopened after a renovation masterminded by the third generation: Hsu Su-lien’s daughter, then studying interior design, designed the space while her son helped build custom display cases and the front stall. The bright new look replaced the old store’s dim, cluttered image, and sales jumped. The next goal is to update the packaging so the products not only taste authentic but also look tempting enough to draw visitors in for the most local of flavors. Recommended: low-salt preserved plums, perilla-plums