Hohocha is a gorgeous tea center in Sun Moon Lake region of Nantou county, Central Taiwan.
The zen-inspired facility showcases the special black teas of Sun Moon Lake. Not only can visitors sample and purchase them but also taste a variety of tea-infused foods.
Every visitor gets a free set with a tea egg, black tea sample, and tea-flavored cookie.
Having visited other tea-focused attractions in the area previously, such as Antique Assam Farm, I was very excited to check out this relatively new tea attraction.
Hohocha can be an easy stop on the way to Sun Moon Lake or a two-hour side trip if you’re already at the lake.
Below you’ll find all the info you need to add Hohocha to your Sun Moon Lake itinerary!
Entrance to Hohocha is TWD 80, which includes a $20 voucher for products. If you buy this deal on KKday, you get entrance, the $20 voucher, and $50 towards an iced tea or tea gelato (total value 150).
Welcome to Hohocha
Hohocha (喝喝茶 or he he cha) literally means “drink drink tea”. Doubling the verb makes it sound like a casual invitation to drink tea.
The three-storey tea center is located in Yuchi (魚池) township, considered Taiwan’s “black tea hometown” (紅茶之鄉).
Taiwan is mainly known for its oolong teas. It was the Japanese colonial government that first started developing new cultivars of black tea in Sun Moon Lake area in the 1910s. They did this to compete with Indian teas at the time.
The new cultivars of black tea they developed were numbered (for example, #18, or “Ruby Red 18”, is my personal favorite).
Production of black teas declined after the Japanese period. But following the 921 earthquake that rocked the region in 1999, there was a revival of black tea production around Sun Moon Lake.
Young people who had left Nantou for big cities in Taiwan started returning to the county to work in the tea industry.
The Wang brothers were two of these people. When they returned to their hometown, they knew almost nothing about tea but they started to learn from local farmers, eventually becoming tea sommeliers.
They started the Taiwan Fragrant Sun Moon Lake Tea Factory (台灣香日月潭紅茶廠), and in 2019 launched Hohocha with the purpose of promoting Sun Moon Lake’s black teas to the world.
Immediately after opening, the tea center became a new hot spot in Sun Moon Lake region.
You can budget about one hour for a visit to Hohocha, including time for enjoying the free samples and purchasing more drinks or snacks to go.
Note: I visited Hohocha by car after an amazing day trip to Sun Link Sea and a lunch in Checheng logging town. Another cool attraction in the region is Shuiyuan Suspension Bridge.
Getting to Hohocha
Hohocha is along the main road between Puli and Sun Moon Lake.
Puli is a transportation hub for popular destinations like Cingjing Farm and Sun Moon Lake. Coming from Taichung, all cars and buses will pass Puli first, then the tea center is just over halfway between Puli and the lake.
Driving or Taking a Tour
If you plan to drive, I recommend renting a car here at Taichung HSR station (read my guide to renting a car in Taiwan). You could also hire a private driver.
Driving down Highway 21 from Puli towards Sun Moon Lake, you’ll need to turn left on Yuchi street (魚池街) and drive into Hohocha’s main entrance here.
You’ll pass through a gate, where you’ll need to show your KKday voucher or pay the entrance fee. Then continue driving in to the parking lot at the back.
If you drive from Sun Moon Lake, you’ll be going north on Highway 21 and turn right onto Yuchi street.
Hohocha is also included on this Sun Moon Lake day tour from Taichung.
If you’re driving, consider also visiting Lugao Cafe (鹿篙咖啡莊園, here), a gorgeous cafe on a hilltop overlooking a tea plantation on one side and coffee plantation on the other. It’s a 15-minute drive into the hills from Hohocha. I shot the “black tea plantation in Yuchi township” photo above there.
Public Transportation
All buses from Taichung station or Taichung HSR station to Sun Moon Lake pass by Yuchi bus stop, which is right next to Hohocha.
The complete bus timetable is here. Yuchi is not indicated in the table, but it’s just 9 minutes before Sun Moon Lake stop. For buses that make a stop at Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village, it will be 12 minutes before the lake.
Most people just swipe EasyCard to ride this bus.
However, if you’re going on a weekend or holiday, you may want to reserve a spot on the bus from Taichung to Sun Moon Lake. There’s no option to reserve to Yuchi stop – just reserve to Sun Moon Lake but get off the bus at Yuchi.
To go from Hohocha to Sun Moon Lake, go back to the same bus stop and ride the same bus. You’ll need to swipe EasyCard. Get off the bus at the last stop, “Sun Moon Lake”, which is here in Shuishe, the main village on the lake.
If you want to go from Sun Moon Lake to Hohocha, board any Taichung-bound bus from the same bus stop in Shuishe and ride it 9 minutes (or 12 minutes if the bus makes a stop at Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village) to Yuchi bus stop.
If you’d also like to visit Antique Assam Farm, which is a tea museum and tea shop housed in a former tea processing facility, it’s an 18-minute walk or 2-minute drive away from Hohocha, in the direction of Sun Moon Lake. It also has a bus stop on the Taichung-to-Sun Moon Lake route right in front of it.
My Experience Visiting Hohocha
I arrived at Hohocha by car, so I pulled into the driveway and showed my KKday QR code to the staff member at the gate. He gave me my ticket and product vouchers and directed me to the parking lot at the back.
The Hohocha Grounds
Before entering the tea center, I took a short stroll around the grounds. Hohocha is surrounded by scenic terraces of tea bushes.
I also saw some 100+ year old tea trees, which according to the sign, means they have survived since the Japanese first planted them. Tea trees usually only live around 30 years, so this is quite impressive!
There were also some pretty Japanese five-needle pines and Taiwan white pines on site.
If you visit in February, there are cherry blossoms too. I missed them, but you can see photos of them in this post.
Read about other cherry blossom locations nearby and their exact times in my Taiwan cherry blossom guide.
I walked up some stairs into the tea terraces, passing some large, colorful wheels displaying the various flavor characteristics of tea.
From the upper tea terraces, I had a lovely view looking down on the Hohocha building.
3rd Floor – Free Sample
Like a few other attractions in Taiwan (such as the Southern Branch of National Palace Museum), visitors should start at the top floor of Hohocha and work their way down.
I took the elevator up to the third floor, where I was greeted by a friendly staff member next to some shelves of large, photogenic, white tins of tea.
Visiting towards the end of the day on a weekday, I found I had the entire 3rd floor tea tasting room to myself.
The staff promptly brought me out my free tea set – I was actually surprised, as I had read that only the first 500 visitors per day get one, and they often run out (you can expect that to actually happen on weekends).
Also, you need to get there at least 20 minutes before closing to get the free tea set, if there are any left.
My set included a tea-flavored almond cookie, glass of black tea, and a tea egg (茶葉蛋). Sun Moon Lake region is especially famous for its tea eggs, which are boiled with black tealeaves, various spices, and sometimes mushrooms.
Note: Besides Hohocha, you can also find yummy tea eggs at Sun Moon Lake (here in Shuishe and here at Xuanguang Temple) and at Sun Link Sea. The Xuanguang Temple ones are the best I’ve ever had.
2nd Floor – Shop and More Samples
Next I went down the stairs at the far end to the large shop which occupies the second floor.
The coolest feature of the shop is the large glass windows on the floor looking down into the tea processing facility on the first floor.
The shop features all manner of black tea-infused snacks, such as tea-flavored noodles, popcorn, cookies, and so on.
They also sell some non-tea local specialties, like dried olives and soaps. Browse all their products here.
Of course, the shop also sells black tea itself, with options that come in tea bags, loose leaf, some very cool larger tins, and ready-to-drink iced teas.
Remember to use your TWD 20 voucher here!
Inside the shop, there’s also a tea sampling station where I got to try five different Sun Moon Lake black teas:
- Mi Xiang Black Tea (蜜香紅茶) or “honey scented” black tea
- Amethyst (紫芽山茶) a rare, lighter colored black tea from native trees
- No. 8 Assam (阿薩姆紅茶) Indian strain that was one of the first introduced to Sun Moon Lake
- No. 18 Ruby (紅玉紅茶) Golden red color with cinnamon and mint tones, still my favorite even after trying the others. I have a whole article about Ruby Red tea.
- No. 21 Amber (紅韻紅茶) A hybrid of Chinese and Indian tea said to have an aroma of pomelo blossom honey
Related: Learn more about Taiwanese teas, where to buy tea in Taipei, and my favorite traditional teahouses in Taipei.
The staff member serving my teas only spoke Mandarin, but there were also labels describing each tea in English and Mandarin.
On the patio outside the second floor, I could not resist the tea-infused gelato.
Being the end of the day, they only had two flavors left, but I was perfectly content with them – mango oolong tea and Ruby Red (the latter is their single most popular one).
During normal hours, you can expect many more options, like matcha, No. 8 Assam, black tea chocolate, white peach oolong, lychee oolong, honey milk tea, and Amethyst tea with grapefruit.
The cutest part was that my gelato came with a sun and moon-shaped cookies, a nod to Sun Moon Lake.
Besides gelato, the cafe also has tempting tea-infused desserts like black tea jelly (紅茶茶凍), tea pudding (布丁), cream puffs (日式紅茶泡芙), and egg-shaped cakes with black tea cream inside (雞蛋燒).
If you got the KKday deal, remember to use your TWD 50 voucher for gelato/dessert or at the iced tea shop downstairs.
1st Floor – Tea Processing Facility
I finished my Hohocha tour on the ground floor, where I was able to peer into the small tea processing facility. There isn’t a whole lot to see, but it’s worth a quick look.
The ground floor has a tea egg kitchen, where you can buy even more of the delicious tea eggs to take away.
Right next to it, there’s also a tea shop selling a variety of iced teas and tea lattes.
You can see the full menu of the gelato shop and tea shop here.
By the time I got to this point, Hohocha was closing, so I missed my chance to buy any drinks.
That was my cue to leave, so I headed out and made it back to Sun Moon Lake just in time for sunset by the lake.
Across the street from Hohocha, kids can make DIY black tea bags and caramels here.