{"id":8285,"date":"2026-05-28T23:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taiwanmerch.co\/uncategorized\/daily-maokong-gondola-2026-05-29\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:39:27","slug":"daily-maokong-gondola-2026-05-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taiwanmerch.co\/zh\/%e6%96%87%e5%8c%96-2\/daily-maokong-gondola-2026-05-29\/","title":{"rendered":"\u8c93\u7a7a\u7e9c\u8eca\uff1a\u9023\u63a5\u53f0\u5317\u8207\u6700\u5f8c\u4e00\u5ea7\u8336\u5c71\u7684\u7a7a\u4e2d\u7e9c\u8eca"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been in Taipei for a few rainy weeks of plum-rain season and you’re itching to get above the cloud line, here’s an underrated move: take the brown line of the MRT to its very last stop, Taipei Zoo Station, and step into a glass-floored cable car that drags you 4.03 kilometers up into the hills behind the city. That’s the Maokong Gondola<\/strong> \u2014 Taiwan’s only urban tea-mountain cable car, and one of the most unfairly overlooked attractions in Taipei.<\/p>\n

The system opened on July 4, 2007, becoming the first gondola line in the country built explicitly for tourists rather than as ski-resort infrastructure. From the bottom station you climb roughly 275 meters in elevation across four stops \u2014 Taipei Zoo, Taipei Zoo South, Zhinan Temple, and finally Maokong \u2014 passing directly over Taipei Zoo, the lush ridgelines of Wenshan District, the gold-roofed Zhinan Temple complex, and an unbroken view of working tea plantations on the way up. On clear evenings you can see Taipei 101 glinting back at you from across the basin.<\/p>\n

The “Cat Empty” mountain that grows Taipei’s only tea<\/h2>\n

The name Maokong<\/em> (\u8c93\u7a7a) translates literally as “cat empty,” but it has nothing to do with cats. It’s a phonetic Mandarin rendering of the Hokkien word niau-khang<\/em>, meaning “potholes” \u2014 a reference to the bowl-shaped erosion marks worn into the riverbeds of the area by centuries of water flow. The neighborhood that grew up around those potholes became Taipei’s only tea-producing zone, and it’s still the source of the city’s signature Tieguanyin<\/strong> (Iron Goddess) oolong. The Zhang family planted the first Tieguanyin cuttings here in 1895, brought over from Anxi in Fujian, and the same cultivar still grows on the hillside today.<\/p>\n

That tea heritage is the whole reason the gondola exists. Maokong’s teahouses \u2014 there are over 50 of them tucked along the ridge \u2014 were already a beloved local escape in the 1980s, but the only way up was a long, winding mini-bus ride or a punishing scooter climb. The gondola turned a 45-minute slog into a 20-minute glide.<\/p>\n

Spring for a Crystal Cabin<\/h2>\n

The biggest tip we can give you: pay the small premium for a Crystal Cabin<\/strong> (\u6c34\u6676\u8eca\u5ec2). Of the system’s 147 gondolas, only 31 are Crystal Cabins \u2014 the ones with a fully transparent reinforced glass floor. Riding standard is fine; riding Crystal turns the trip into a stomach-dropping aerial show as the tea terraces, temple roofs, and zoo enclosures float by under your feet. Crystal Cabins were introduced in late 2010, two years after Typhoon Jangmi forced the system to shut down for a 16-month safety overhaul (the original Tower 16 had to be relocated after a typhoon-triggered landslide). They cost NT$60 more than standard cabins and the line is always longer \u2014 show up early.<\/p>\n

A one-way standard ride is NT$120; a Crystal Cabin is NT$180. Even better, your EasyCard works directly at the turnstile<\/strong> \u2014 no separate ticket needed.<\/p>\n

What to actually do once you’re up there<\/h2>\n

Most first-timers ride the gondola, take five photos at the Maokong terminus, and ride straight back down. Don’t do that. The whole point is the ridge:<\/p>\n