The place where hotpot marries teapot

The chewy tapioca balls.[Photo provided to China Daily]

At CouCou's headquarters they made me a bubble tea that simply oozed wow power. It had three distinct layers: thick milk foam on the top, then the crushed ice, and the rest tea. The tapioca pearls are very fresh and each has a consistent chewy but soft feel to it.

To get a better mouth feel in the tea, water has to go through five processes of filtration to be softened, Chang says.

"Beijing's water is very hard, whereas water in Taiwan is soft and brings out the flavor much more clearly in a tea.

"Here you get the same flavor as the first bubble tea in Taiwan, which is believed to have been first been made about 30 years ago."

There are 23 different hand-shaken tea drinks you can choose from at CouCou. Most cost about 20 yuan ($3).

"Both hotpot and tea are imbued with the time-honored culinary culture of China," Chang says. "To enhance the hotpot dining experience the cooking utensils and tableware specially designed in Taiwan to replicate an ambiance of an ancient dining culture."

Chang showed me a ding, an ancient round cast-iron Chinese cauldron, which in this case had gone through 19 moldings.

"Rather than use a stainless steel pot, the ding has a primitive feel about it, adds a sense of ceremony to the occasion, and shows respect for ancient Chinese dining culture," he says.

In hotpot dining the cooking broth is undoubtedly the most important ingredient, one that lays the foundation for the flavors.