The beginnings

The idea of of bringing real Italian gelato to Taiwan has many roots. After they intersected at that right moment in time, the idea was born. One of the roots can be traced back to the streets of Barcelona.

La Rambla is the place where tourists from all over the world mingle with locals, human statues perform they static performances, street hawkers offer some weird voice changing devices for kids (as if they needed it!) and where all types of street foods are sold. Here is the picture that has the feel of Rambla in Barcelona.

Well one of the greatest foods offered there is real Italian gelato. If you don't know what gelato is, there will be a whole blog entry on what gelato is and why it is so much greater than ice cream. But for now, let's just say gelato is a frozen desert, to which ice cream is a mass produced cousin.

That one particular shop was fantastic. I know the word 'fantastic' has been overused. Nowadays it's value indicates 'slightly better than ok', or 'ok, stop annoying me with your story'. But not in this case. That gelato brings 'fantastic' to where it belongs.

The taste was rich, fully developed, texture creamy, temperature just right so your tongue didn't fall off and colours were natural. That gelato was actually so good that it changed our holiday plans. We wanted to go to Gaudi's Park? Yes, but let's get THE gelato first. Trip to Andorra four hours away? Yes, but only after the gelato shop opens, ok? The last day was also the saddest day of the trip. Not because it was the last day. But simply because THE gelato shop was closed! Sadly, a shop next door offered gelato of pretty low quality.

This gelato simply created a benchmark in our taste buds. It is now the standard for what real gelato should taste like. It also caused us to frown upon the frozen deserts who lure you by pretending they are gelato, yet they are mere powder water mixtures. And now this is our aspiration to make each scoop to this standard.