After Typhoon Danas: When Nature Shook Tainan’s Pomelo Orchards

On the late evening of July 6th, Typhoon Danas made history by becoming the first typhoon in meteorological records to make landfall in Chiayi. Within hours, it unleashed fierce winds and torrential rain that left vast stretches of farmland in Tainan devastated. The Ministry of Agriculture estimated the agricultural losses at nearly NT$1.1 billion, making it one of the most severe typhoons to strike the region in recent years.

Among the hardest-hit crops was the Matou pomelo (麻豆文旦), an essential fruit for the Mid-Autumn Festival—both for family gatherings and as a beloved gift. For farmers, losing pomelo harvests so close to the holiday season was not just an economic blow, but an emotional one.

“Walking into the orchard, we didn’t see the familiar green trees,” recalls Pomelo Village (柚一村), a farm specializing in old-grove pomelos. “Instead, the ground was carpeted with fallen fruits. Eight to nine out of every ten pomelos were gone. For a crop that yields only once a year, it felt like near total destruction.” Without dwelling on despair, the farmers immediately began draining water and clearing debris to protect the roots and trees that survived.

But the question remained—what could be done with the fallen fruit?

To avoid letting months of labor vanish, the farmers began processing the damaged pomelos, separating peel and pulp, and turning the flesh into vacuum-frozen pomelo segments. The goal: find partners who could transform this rescued fruit into something meaningful.

When we heard their story, we knew we had to help. Together with our friends at BaganHood restaurant in Taipei, we envisioned a project that would give these pomelos a second life. Local Matou business Quanfeng Optoelectronics, which traditionally gave pomelos as Mid-Autumn gifts, embraced the idea—this year, they would gift Matou pomelo ice cream instead.

The challenge, then, was to craft a flavor worthy of both the fruit and the season. Having experimented before with pomelo jams—without much success—our master glacier Jam Hsu decided on a new approach: a creative twist on the classic Hong Kong dessert “Mango Pomelo Sago.” By blending the frozen pomelo flesh with a base of ripe mango and silky coconut milk, we created a flavor that begins with the bright fragrance of pomelo, opens into the golden richness of mango, and finishes with the gentle embrace of coconut—like a warm southern breeze.

For us, this project was more than just developing a new flavor. It was about showing how, through partnerships and creativity, food can tell the stories of farmers, reduce waste, and bring communities together. Sometimes, saving fruit means saving much more than just a harvest—it means preserving a culture of resilience.