A large part of Chinese culture over thousands of years have been the tea shop where people go to socialize and drink tea. In Taiwan those things are all but gone, replaced by what you see above.
Taiwan is full off fast food-esque tea shops where you just walk up to the outside counter and order the drink you want. The tea itself has become very "fast food" in that it's very low quality, the ingredients are super unhealthy, and cheap. But just like fast food restaurants, they are extremely popular and every time a Taiwanese person is thirsty and says "i need something to drink" they go to a tea shop.
The teas don't really keep well over time, so people will just go out and get them whenever they are thirsty. Which isn't really a problem because there are so many tea shops that going to one is basically the same as walking to your fridge. In fact you will often see people in their pajamas or robes walking the few steps from their apartment building to the nearest tea shop.
As for what teas they have, they have everything you can imagine. The iconic drink is "pearl milk tea" also know as "bubble tea." It is black tea (which is actually called red tea) with syrupy sugar added, creamer, and tapioca balls. I'll let you decide if that sounds tasty or not. But as you can see from the picture above, teas come in all different types, with all kinds of jellies, fruit, vegetables, Chinese medicine, herbs and spices, added. Some tea shops have menus that include over fifty different drinks.
The "Coco" in this is the name of a tea shop chain. There are maybe eight or so big chains in the city, and they do all taste quite different. Each one has their supporters and detractors. True to my uncultured foreigner taste buds, the ones I like quickly go out of business. There are also a lot of privately owned tea shops, especially as many people dream of quitting their job and having their own tea shop.
However most tea shops are quite unsuccessful, especially new ones as it's extremely tough to break into the over saturated market. Usually people open to great starting business as they have grand opening discounts, but once the prices go back to normal, the business goes away. Which I get. If you are a "Coco" guy/gal, the only reason to go to a different place is if it's much cheaper, and then when the prices go back to normal, you just go back to "Coco," especially since there is probably one ten meters away.
I myself never drink at tea shops. They are insanely unhealthy, but there is another reason why i don't particularly care for them. Since you walk up to the outdoor counter to order, it means everybody is waiting on the sidewalk for their tea, and it makes it troublesome to get through the crowd to get to where you are going. And with a tea shop every few meters, this makes the streets just a mess of people crowded around waiting for their tea. It's never fun when it takes ten minutes to walk someplace that should only take three minutes to get to, because you have to fight your way through the hoards of people waiting for their tea.
