Some Salt with Your Coffee? Taiwan's Hot Drink    • Share   •
Read Later  In Taiwan, sea salt is being whipped into the creamy
foam atop sweet coffee  Chinese people like to eat foods that
Westerners consider unusual, things like pig-blood cake and
chicken-butt kebab, to name just a few popular snacks. So the
introduction of salty coffee shouldn't be such a shocker. What
difference, after all, can a few sprinkles of salt make to your
morning cup of joe? The chefs at Taiwan's top coffeehouse, 85C
Bakery Cafe, pondered that question for six months before they
started serving sea-salt coffee, which became their best-selling
drink following its December debut.  That's no small feat
considering that 85°C (which is named for the ideal temperature
at which to brew coffee) has surpassed Starbucks to become the
biggest coffee chain in Taiwan. Founded five years ago by tea-
shop owner Wu Cheng-hsueh, 85°C now has 325 stores in Taiwan and
is expanding into China, Australia and the U.S. Wu first built
the business by find