Maybe the thriving cafe scene in Japan is also contributed by Japanese people’s love of cute decor cute little things that show the owner’s character and taste. Japanese just appreciate pretty things much more than say HK people in general. Quality of food is not everything, the environment is also important. They are willing to pay for the decor and ambience(while I want to spend every cent on food and food alone ^^;;;). Also Japanese do have a sweet tooth for cakes and desserts. Don’t forget they have matcha and Japanese sweets in Japanese-style cafes that are from long time ago and have nothing got to do with western influence.

As for the generally boring and bad Taiwanese cafe food, I think it’s because Taiwan never had actual historic western influence (be it ‘open port’ or ‘colonial’) for their western cafe culture. Taiwanese cafe culture is more or less a water-down copy of contemporary Japan. Since they didn’t go through that colonial French/Dutch/UK/Portugal/Europe influenced of S.Asia, Hong Kong or open port of Victorian age Japan where they get their own fusion cafe food evolved through history. So Taiwanese cafe usually have some uninspiring club sandwich, generic cheese cake, dried JP-style crepe…etc. So I don’t trust anything ‘western’ by Taiwan (and Korean too) in general…because they’re usually some shallow copy of Japanese cafe/youshouku ^^;; I’ll rather order Taiwanese’s own oyster pancake or sausages or shave ice, etc.

湯さん＞
むちゅうってほどでもないよ～
寒いから甘いミルクティーが美味しく感じる。
プレスサンドの機械を買ったらパーティでやりましょうぜ。