30-Second Overview
Ma-wai refers to the young shoots of jute. During the Japanese colonial era, the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office promoted large-scale jute cultivation in Nantun, Taichung for the jute sack industry. Local farmers would pick the young leaves, rub off the mucilage and bitter sap, then boil them with sweet potatoes and dried small fish to make a thick green soup, served as a home-style dish for cooling the liver and reducing internal heat in summer[^1][^2]. After plastic bags became widespread in the 1960s, jute fields almost entirely disappeared within three decades, but Ma-wai soup did not fade away—it evolved from an industrial by-product into a taste identifier for Taichung residents, rarely consumed south of Changhua or north of Fengyuan[^3][^4]. Today, the Ma-wai Cultural Museum on Wanhe Road in Nantun is the 32nd local cultural museum in Taiwan and the first privately run one in Taichung City, guided by the Council for Cultural Affairs, and the only museum in Taiwan themed around a local vegetable[^5][^11].
A Green Dish Forgotten by Industry, Retained by Taste Buds
The first time a bowl of Ma-wai soup is served, it looks like a bowl of spinach puree that wandered into a restaurant by mistake. It is dark green, thick, with dried small fish floating on the surface and cubed sweet potatoes sinking to the bottom. The first three seconds of drinking it bring a grassy bitterness, the fifth second the sweetness of sweet potatoes rises, and a sweet aftertaste lingers in the throat—this is the taste of summer that Taichung residents grow up drinking[^4][^6].
But the star ingredient of this soup was never originally intended to be consumed.
Jute belongs to the Tiliaceae family, an annual herb. Two species are common in Taiwan: round-pod jute (Corchorus capsularis) and long-pod jute (Corchorus olitorius). The former has tougher fibers, making it the main material for rope and sack production; the latter has thicker leaves and abundant mucilage, known as "molokhiya (king's vegetable)" in the Arab world and used for soup—this is the species primarily used for Taichung’s Ma-wai soup[^13][^14]. According to historical records, jute was first introduced to Xikou, Chiayi from Fujian during the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty. During the Japanese colonial era, to meet the need for large quantities of jute sacks to package rice for export, the Governor-General’s Office began promoting large-scale cultivation in the Taichung Basin after 1895. Nantun (formerly known as Litoudian) once became a major production area due to its well-drained red soil[^5][^7][^12].
💡 Did You Know?
The entire economic value of jute lies in the "fiber of its stems"; leaves were originally waste discarded by farmers at field edges. Ma-wai soup was born out of farmers’ reluctance to waste resources—they rubbed the young leaves, washed off the bitter sap, and tossed them into soup, which unexpectedly became a top summer heat-relief dish[^2][^7].
Why Only Taichung? Three Geographic Lines
The distribution of Ma-wai soup is almost a map of former jute fields. The food and agriculture teaching materials of the Taichung City Government Education Bureau state bluntly: "Rarely cultivated south of Changhua or north of Fengyuan"[^2]. This narrow north-south belt of approximately 40 kilometers corresponds exactly to the most intensive jute contract farming areas during the Japanese colonial period—especially the area along the Mayuantou Creek in Nantun, which was once the region with the largest farmland area and highest Ma-wai cultivation volume in Taichung, known locally as the "New Hometown of Ma-wai"[^16].
More critical is the processing threshold. Ma-wai leaves are rich in mucilage and bitter compounds, requiring "rubbing to remove sap" first. Insufficient rubbing results in soup too bitter to drink; over-rubbing turns the leaves mushy and ruins the texture. Old Nantun residents have a saying: "Rub Ma-wai until foam forms, but do not rub until the fibers break"[^1][^4]. This is a dish with no SOP, relying entirely on tactile intuition—back then, every household made it daily, so there was no chance for outsiders to learn.
From Balizhun to Wanhe Temple: A Taiwanese History of Fiber
To understand why Ma-wai is in Taichung, you must first understand why Taiwan grew jute.
- 1895 — Japan took over Taiwan, launched the rice export program to Japan, and demand for jute sacks surged[^7][^15]
- 1910s–1940s — The Taichung Basin became Taiwan’s largest jute production area, with jute processing huts (bark peeling workshops) in Nantun, Wuri, and Dali[^5][^12]
- 1960s — PE plastic bags entered Taiwan’s packaging industry, and jute sacks lost cost competitiveness[^3]
- 1970s — Jute cultivation area plummeted by 90% within a decade, and most jute processing huts were demolished[^7]
- 1997 — Wanhe Temple established the "Wanhe Cultural and Educational Foundation" and launched the Nantun local culture preservation project[^11]
- 2003 — Under the guidance of the Council for Cultural Affairs, the Wanhe Cultural and Educational Foundation established the "Ma-wai Cultural Museum" on the 5th floor of the Wanhe Cultural Building, which is the 32nd local cultural museum in Taiwan and the first privately run local cultural museum in Taichung City[^5][^11][^17]
📝 Curator’s Note
Taiwan has many lost cash crops—camphor in Miaoli, sugarcane in Yilan, sisal hemp in Pingtung—after they exited the stage, their industrial sites mostly became museums or cultural and creative parks. But only Ma-wai has survived in the most everyday form: "cuisine". A bowl of soup preserves history better than a factory.
The Politics of Bitterness
Why don’t Taipei residents drink it, nor Tainan residents? Besides not cultivating it, there is a more subjective reason: bitterness.
Taiwanese outside central Taiwan generally have a lower tolerance for "bitterness". Tainan cuisine tends to be sweet, Taipei cuisine salty, Hakka cuisine salty and fragrant—only Taichung has developed a "mildly bitter with sweet aftertaste" line—Da Mian Geng (noodles boiled in alkaline water, with a slight bitter taste) and Ma-wai soup are the two pillars of this line[^1]. Scholar Wang Pai-ren wrote in the quarterly Cultural Taichung: "For Nantun residents, the phrase 'bitterness followed by sweetness' is literally something they taste in their mouths."[^1]
This is also why Ma-wai soup is difficult to "unify north and south". It is not that it tastes bad, but its deliciousness requires a full set of local taste training—you have to accept the first sip of bitterness to wait for the sweetness of the third sip.
Nutrition and Medicinal Properties of a Bowl of Soup
Setting aside industrial history, from a nutritional perspective, Ma-wai actually has an impressive profile. Every 100 grams of Ma-wai is rich in β-carotene, lutein, vitamin A, phenolic compounds, dietary fiber, and minerals such as potassium, calcium, and iron, making it a low-calorie leafy green vegetable with high antioxidant capacity[^6].
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) literature classifies jute leaves as a medicinal material with cold nature and bitter taste, recording effects of "regulating qi to relieve pain, draining pus and detoxifying", mainly treating symptoms such as hemoptysis and hematemesis[^14]—which corresponds exactly to the folk experience of "drinking Ma-wai soup in summer to cool the liver and reduce internal heat" passed down by elderly Nantun residents[^2][^10]. According to cultivation data from agricultural research stations, long-pod jute is also promoted as a "great natural ingredient for thickening" due to its leaves containing natural polysaccharides, which can make soup thick and