Dihua Street

This guide to Dihua Street in Taipei follows Scottish merchant John Dodd, who arrived in the 1860s chasing camphor and instead bet his career on tea nobody here had learned to finish and sell abroad. You'll hear how he lent money to local farmers, brought in tea makers from Fujian, and gambled on shipping the finished leaf straight from Taiwan to New York under a brand-new name. The guide traces how that wager reshaped the ornate shophouse facades still lining the street today.