Keelung Café Hopping

Despite recent efforts to neaten and gentrify, Keelung is unmistakably an old port city. This identity manifests in a slightly restless, edgy energy and a general air of either roughness or salt-of-the-earthiness depending on how charitable the describer is feeling. The place is full of businesses that you often find around ports — markets and restaurants specialising in fresh fish and establishments specialising in providing the kind of services required by men who are a long way from home for extended periods. But in addition to these port staples, Keelung’s maritime connections have bestowed it with something else — a disproportionate amount of excellent coffee shops.

Taiwan does not have an especially long history of coffee drinking. British businessman James W. Davidson is noted in the history books as being the first person to cultivate coffee trees here. He had a shipment of 100 seedlings brought over from Manila and planted them in the hills around Sanxia in 1884, but his experimental plantation seems to have later been abandoned. Likewise, the Japanese (who had already got a taste for coffee by the time they colonised Taiwan), experimented with growing coffee locally. Their endeavours, however, were beset by difficulties. First a disease took out most of the trees, and later war efforts meant that all non-essential projects (such as coffee growing) were cut short and it wasn’t until the mid-1900s that coffee drinking became A Thing here. Since then, Taiwan’s coffee culture has undergone several waves, from the early kissaten-style (喫茶店) stores to the birth of local brands in the 1990s and 2000s, and on to the rather diverse and specialised stores that can be found now.

As a port city, Keelung was an especially early adopter of coffee culture, and if you nose around the backstreets and markets, you’ll find stores that have endured since the crest of their respective waves. There are smoky dives and high-end patisseries, cat cafés and barber-cum-coffee-shops, places with just one or two roadside seats and places where you can cut yourself off from the world for the whole afternoon. In short, if you enjoy café hopping, Keelung is an excellent place to visit.

I haven’t done nearly enough personal research into the subject, but below, you can find a map showing some of the town’s coffee shops, as well as photos and notes from those I’ve visited. I plan to keep adding to this as and when time permits.

After5步驟六基隆店

📍201, Keelung City, Xinyi District, 義六路67巷1號

You should go if: you want to while away a quiet few hours in a bright and breezy space that feels a million miles from its city-centre location

Tucked up an unprepossessing lane behind Zhongzheng Park, After5 is a gorgeously airy café with a quiet, relaxing atmosphere. Seating is split over two levels, and well-planned with different arrangements of chairs for solo diners, couples and small groups. I chose a bench seat facing out through the open balcony door, where I could watch black kites wheeling through the sky. Being by myself, I was only able to pick one drink and opted for a flat white. Even for such a simple drink, there are two choices of beans, and I picked the slightly more sour option, which had a strong fruity foretaste that mellowed as it went down.

🇬🇧 English menu
☕️ Extensive single-origin menu
🍹 Some fascinating coffee-based mocktails
🪑 Indoor and outdoor seating available
🥪 Sweet and savoury snacks

Anygood Coffee B31

(多好咖啡店)

📍200, Keelung City, Ren’ai District, Aisan Rd, 21號攤位B31仁愛市場二樓

You should go if: you enjoy good coffee and prioritise interesting environments over relaxing ones

This tiny modern store is one of several coffee shops located on the bustling second floor of Ren’ai Market. It has a few table seats and a handful of bar stools, and when we visited on a rainy weekend, each seat was occupied. Skilled staff can prepare pour-over coffee based on your taste preferences or you can order from the drinks menu. The store also sells a small range of desserts.

🇬🇧 English menu
🌱 Oat milk options available
🪑 Indoor seating only
🍮 Serves great puddings

DO-EN Coffee

(豆隱咖啡自家烘焙)

📍200, Keelung City, Ren’ai District, Lane 54, Ai 2nd Rd, 12號1樓

You should go if: you like your early morning caffeine with a side-serving of cats

DO-EN Coffee is a tiny store tucked down the same alleyway as Senki Coffee. Open Friday to Tuesday, it is pretty much the earliest opening coffee shop in Keelung (7 am weekdays, 9 am on weekends). I ordered the 1+1 set, which is an espresso with either a latte or a cappuccino — perfect to set me up for a long day. At peak times, there’s a 90-minute limit for seating because the interior space is tiny, but that seems reasonable enough.

🇬🇧 English menu
⏰ Early opening on weekdays
🔌 A couple of tables have sockets
🪑 One outdoor table and two rows of indoor seats

Senki Coffee

(三奇壹號咖啡館)

📍No. 2號, Lane 54, Ai 2nd Rd, Ren’ai District, Keelung City, 200

You should go if: you have an insatiable hankering for photogenic mille crepe cakes

Senki Coffee is a great little coffee shop that’s close to the centre of town, but — thanks to its alleyway location — feels miles way from the crowds. I visited at opening time midweek, and the empty store filled up within half an hour; most of the seats were taken. Despite this, the place remained quiet and I really enjoyed sitting in the window seat to watch the world go by.

🇬🇧 English menu
🔌 A couple of tables have sockets, but there’s a time limit
🍰 Specialises in mille crepe cakes
🥪 Small selection of light meals

渡邊珈琲製造所

📍No. 23號, Lane 4, Yi 3rd Rd, Xinyi District, Keelung City, 201014

You should go if: you enjoy retro/Japanese styling and want a good tiramisu

This two-floor café is hidden down a back lane near Keelung Martyr’s Shrine. J-pop and Godzilla posters add a Japanese touch to the ambience and the well-chosen range of tableware feels artfully mismatched. Personally, I think the two window-side tables are the best seats in the house because they allow you to watch the comings and goings on the street outside. We ordered a slice of thick toast with potato salad (very moreish), a dirty coffee (strong, just on the right side of bitterness), and a narcotic coffee (麻藥咖啡, made with some kind of herbs, slightly sweet).

🪑 Indoor seating only
🇯🇵 Japanese styling
🔌 Bar seats have sockets
🌱 Oat milk options available
🍰 🍛 Sweets and light meals available

貴客咖啡

📍No. 31號, Zhongsi Rd, Ren’ai District, Keelung City, 200

You should go if: you want a local local experience

This historic tea and coffee shop has been in operation for several decades already. Tucked into a spot under a roaring overpass and away from the harbour, this place is relatively unknown to outsiders but it has a loyal local customer base. The proprietress is one of those people who seems able to build an instant, easy rapport with patrons, while her male counterpart deftly makes the drinks with methodical care. Authenticity is guaranteed, frills are not. When we visited, we didn’t actually try the coffee, we had their signature stove-cooked milk tea, which is infused with orange rind and thickened with crumbled biscuits. I plan to go back in the summer for their pour-over yirgacheffe ice cream float.

🪑Covered outdoor seating only
🇹🇼 Very Taiwan
🍕Snacks available
🚬 Many regulars are smokers

隱山所

📍No. 116號, Lane 48, Shiqiu Rd, Ren’ai District, Keelung City, 200

You should go if: are a fan of the shabby chic aesthetic and want to feel like you’ve earned your cake (or you fancy a sweet treat after visiting the nearby historic fort)

This quiet coffee shop is hidden in a nondescript white-washed old house on a steep and narrow lane way, way out in the outskirts of Keelung. In fact, it’s less than 50 metres from where Freeway No. 1 emerges into the city after cutting through the hillside, but you’d never know that once you’re ticked inside. The interior space is comprised of three rooms, two of which are connected via a partially knocked-through wall, and the furniture and eclectic decorations seem to have been salvaged from here there and everywhere. (And if you pop to the toilet, you’ll find a beautiful traditional bathtub.) Drinks wise, the menu is solid and there is a fine selection of cakes that are handmade by the owner. Google Maps seems to suggest the place gets rather busy on weekends, but at noon on a weekday, it was just myself and another couple for almost two hours.