Photo By: Elin Chow
Address: No.219, Section 3, Zhongshan Rd, Puli Township, Nantou Country, Taiwan 545 南投县埔里镇中山路3段219号
Leaving Puli King Garden 埔里元首馆, we proceeded on to the next stop of our day - Puli Brewery 埔里酒厂.
Puli Brewery
Puli is famous for its Shaoxing Wine 绍兴酒, one of the 10 famous liquors in Chinese history. Blessed with sweet and clean spring water, Puli Brewery is known to have produced excellent quality of Shaoxing Wine with bright yellow texture and unique fragrance.
The Brewery was once severely damaged and devastated by the 921 Earthquake. Thanks to the government post-earthquake reconstruction efforts, Puli Brewery has been restored to its former glory.
Operating Hours
The operating hours for Puli Brewery is as follows:
Operating
Hours
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Monday - Friday
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8.30 am – 5.00 pm
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Saturday & Sunday
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8.30 am – 6.00 pm
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Puli Brewery is highly advertised as one of the popular tourist attraction in Puli. However, there was nothing particularly interesting or remarkable about this place. To be frank, we were initially not keen to visit this attraction, but since we got some time to spare, we decided to drop by and take a quick look.
The Brewery consists of two floors - a marketplace on the ground floor and a museum on the second floor. Upon arrival, we took the escalator straight up to the second floor where we get to learn more about the history of wine in Chinese culture.
The first Wine Cultural Museum was set up to promote the culture of Shaoxing Wine and preserve the history of the brewery.
It was great to have Mr Tsai walked us through the museum and provided us with a detailed explanation on the wine manufacturing process. We could have read the information provided on the information panels ourselves. But we did not bother to read them since we were not interested in history.
Apart from that, there were also more than 100 bronze and porcelain utensils, art and calligraphy works of Puli artists on display around the museum.
At a side corner, we also came upon a small shop selling a variety of souvenirs, aboriginal clothing, art and crafts.
Puli Shaoxing Wine is made and fermented from high quality sticky rice, barley and distilled water. During fermentation, the wine are sealed tightly and stored in earthenware jars for at least 30 months before it is ready to be enjoyed. A typical Shaoxing wine is three-year ripe wine, but the longer it is kept, the better the quality.
The museum also display a collection of wine earthenware jars used to store the wine. It was pretty interesting to walk through a narrow passageway with rows of earthenware jars stacked up on both sides of the wall.
Of course, the rows of earthenware jars also makes a great backdrop for photo-taking.
The museum was quite small, so there was nothing much to do or see except walk around, read all the information available and take some tourist photos.
We spent about 20 minutes or so exploring and snapping photos around the place. For us, that was just more than enough time to see everything in the museum.
At the end of the museum, visitors can purchase a wine cup and enjoy a free wine tasting of a wine of their choice. However, if you are interested in tasting the wine, you might want to take the escalator back to the ground floor where you will find an array of local food and drink products made with wine for sale. Feel free to sample the food and drinks as much as you like before you decide whether to buy any of these or not.
For some reason, this place actually feels like a cheap tourist trap to me. Everywhere was crowded with tourists and tour buses with vendors shouting over stalls to attract tourists' attraction. It was very commercialized and not worth a visit especially when you are on a tight itinerary.
If you are interested to know more about our trip, you may want to check out our 11D10N round island tour itinerary for the list of attractions that we had visited during our 11 days in Taiwan. Be sure to follow me on Facebook or Twitter for the latest updates on my 11 days adventures in Taiwan!
5 comments
Happen read your blog recently thru Google search about the visa application. Saw someone which look like you yesterday in a salon. Not sure was it you :)
ReplyDeleteHi, I was at a salon yesterday. So the one you saw is probably me. :)
DeleteOh! Was at PV128. I was sitting at the waiting area. U looking good and cheerful. Have a good day ahead!
ReplyDeleteOh, you should have said "hi" . Haha if you need any help on the visa application, do let me know. :)
DeleteOh, you should have said "hi" . Haha if you need any help on the visa application, do let me know. :)
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