Sea Breeze Cafe

「Going to a coffee shop is a daily habit of life.」

Sea Breeze Café is a cafeteria with a long history in Taitung. In fact, its proximity to the sea was not the reason why its female owner Zaizhen Huan named it Sea Breeze. Growing up in a Hakka family at Guanshan, Zaizhen named her restaurant “Sea Breeze” (Haifeng in Chinese) to honor where she came from because her family speaks Hakka language with Haifeng tone. She worked far away from home in the early years of her career. When she returned to her hometown, she decided to open a cafeteria to serve western food in Hakka style. Since the cafeteria was opened 8 years ago, she has constantly sought inspiration to innovate and improve. What has remained unchanged is her original intention to promote Hakka culture. Although this dining place looks just like an ordinary cafeteria, its ingredients and desserts have their own stories and Zaizhen has worked hard to bring new dining experiences to her guests through a combination of western food and traditional Hakka cuisine. Ciabatta with salted pork in Hakka style and rice stew in white sauce with Hakka style salted pork on the menu are good choices for adventurous diners as they combine Hakka cuisine and western food. In the right season, the café will serve “Niu-wen-shui” (which means a cow playing in water), a traditional Hakka desert, with coffee. Positive feedback from her guests about this creative combination makes her believe that her cooking is not just food that fill their stomachs, but an expression of her ideals, passions, and memories. Whenever Zaizhen visits her family in Guanshan during her days off, she would buy good local ingredients whenever they are available and bring them back to the cafeteria for the preparation of cakes and desserts or other dishes. From time to time, visitors can see fruits grown by her family and cans of pickled food in Hakka style in the restaurant. They are a symbol of a western cafeteria with Hakka soul.