This Taiwanese Market Bag 茄芷袋 is a quintessential daily use item in Taiwan. You'll see these everywhere when walking the old streets in Taiwan; they were (and still are) traditionally used as grocery and bulk produce totes, an OG reusable shopping bag. Many brands and shops add their logos and tags to this useful tote; it's the perfect way to wear your Taiwan pride.

The bag style originated in the Japanese era and was originally hand crafted from rushes. As manufacturing technology was developed, the original bags were reinterpreted using a red, white, green, and blue pinstripe nylon fabric, similar in feel and construction to fishing nets. The material is perfect for agricultural, rural, and market use - it's hard wearing and can simply be rinsed in water and air dried. The largest sizes are widely used in traditional agriculture to hold bulk quantities of tea and vegetables for transport.

In Taiwan, these are called "Ga Ji Dai" bags, a phoneticization of the original Japanese name, referencing the grass weaving technique. The Chinese characters translate to eggplant, but are only used because they approximate the sound of the colloquial name. No eggplants were harmed in the making of these bags.

This size (known as size 3) is perfect for use as a grocery shopping bag or book tote. It's approximately 14" x 9.5"x 2.75". See photo for scale against our soy sauces.

About Yun Hai Selection

Yun Hai Selection is the house brand of Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry.

Thanks and Acknowledgements

We have many people to thank for helping us realize this project:
Hyphen Works for their passionate and thorough creative direction of our kickstarter campaign and our packaging, even when asked at a moment's notice
Overice and Jessica Chen for turning around the most beauitful fruit illustrations more or less overnight (can i take a bite out of that wax apple? I'm still wondering)
Leh Lin for dropping everything to join us on a last minute sourcing trip and his help with late night product photography
Jeremiah Chiu for letting us use his amazing music for our Kickstarter video
All of the incredible farmers and their teams who tirelessly grew, dried, and packed these amazing fruits
Sony for pushing all the boundaries to rush deliver us the most beautiful packaging
Xiao Luo and Xiao Yeh for producing cardboard boxes during a paper shortage and driving multiple hours to hand deliver them at a day’s notice
Bryant for working tirelessly to find us a ship and a container amidst the shipping craziness
Angeline and Annabel who made sure our products arrived and cleared customs without a hitch
Feng for all her tenacity and agility in being our woman on the ground, packing and shipping all of the products out of Taiwan
All our friends and families who we put off or ignored or cancelled plans with to get these fruits out

And of course thank you to our 1,117 backers, with special acknowledgment to the MEGA supporters below:
Aaron Jen, Acousticsheep LLC, Ada Chen, Alexander Dumitriu, Allison Teng, Angela Juang, Annlie Huang, Arthur Keller, Belle Huang, Bill Himmelsbach, Brian Goldberg, Calvin Szeto, Caroline Chan, Cindy Hom, Debbie Lai, Derek Houng, Edward Liu, Emily Chang, Emily Kuo, Eric Delagardelle, Eugenia Hu, Felix Hu, Grace Flaak, Hanna Huang, Ho Chie Tsai, Ho Tsai, Hui Miao, Ian Anderson, James Lin, Jane Lui, Jean Han, Jeff Ho, Jeff Shieh, Jennifer Liang, Jimmy Qiu, John Wei, Josephina Shih, Josh Ku, Juliana Shyu, Justina Cheng, Kari Parks, Katherine Tsay, Kelvin Yen, King Leung, Larry Debrock, Lilly Lampe, Linda Hou, Lynna Tsou, Margaret Chou, Mei Edwards, Misty Burnett, Nikki Depaola, Olivia Tzou, Pamela Rose, Serena Teng, The Chuang Family, Trigg Brown, Wei-Zen Wei, Xin Liu