Tea had been the leading beverage in Taiwan hot drink industry until the coffee-drinking culture was introduced to Taiwan. This paper speculates that many Taiwanese people have altered their preference from tea to coffee causing Taiwanese tea industry to suffer and tea culture to decline. The purpose of this paper is to check this speculation and find out the reasons causing this social phenomenon of cultural change of Taiwanese hot beverage consumption. This paper has used ‘Starbuckization’ as an example indicating that the introduction of a foreign culture can cause effects of local culture. Nevertheless, the Starbucks effect leads to western culture adoration, where study has shown a positive correlation between western culture vanity and western culture adoration in coffee consumption. Overall, western culture adoration has become the most significant factors in consumer preferences and decision-making in beverage consumption. However, future research should keep track the trend of Taiwan hot drink industry, and see whether or not there is another reason that is causing the cultural change of Taiwanese hot beverage consumption. Nevertheless, future research should test if experiential purchase would work in the tea industry.
