Taiwan 7-Eleven Heaven – Best Food & Drink Guide + Photos 2024
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We’re in heaven when at Taiwan 7-Eleven!
Although Taiwan is world famous for its delicious Taiwanese street food, it has to be said that half of the fun we had there was exploring and scouring the Taiwan 7-Eleven stores for interesting snacks and drinks.
With around 7,000 Taiwan 7-Eleven stores in 2024 (including over 100 character themed 7-Elevens – link), convenience stores in Taiwan are big business.
As most of our Taiwanese hotels were right next door to 7-Elevens (or other similar convenience stores), we’d often roam the Taiwan 7-Eleven aisles day and night to see what Taiwan snacks we could find.
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Table of Contents
Taiwan 7-Eleven History and Themed 7-Elevens
The first Taiwan 7-Elevens opened in 1979 and stores have since earned themselves a local nickname: 7-Eleven Food Heaven. There are around 14,000 convenience stores in Taiwan and 7-Eleven has approximately half of the market share.
We also noticed a definite social aspect to 7-Eleven in Taiwan (more so than any other Asian city) as many have ‘City Cafe’ sections where you can sit down and drink your hot coffee or cold beer.
Taiwan is increasingly becoming known for its themed 7-Elevens whereby stores heavily feature licensed characters like Ultraman, Snoopy, Mofusando or Pompompurin across shelves, windows, in-store displays and even the 7-Eleven coffee cups.
There is a Starlux themed airline 7-Eleven plus other brand collaborations like a Lay’s themed 7-Eleven or even a premium Maserati sports car 7-Eleven.
There are over 100 themed 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan – read about the 18 best themed 7-Elevens in Taiwan here >
How many 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan are there?
As of 2024, there are around 7,000 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan (it is the country’s largest convenience store chain).
To give you a sense of how big 7-Eleven is in Taiwan compared to other convenience, the next largest convenience store chain in Taiwan is Family Mart, with around 4,000 branches.
You might like – reasons why Taiwan 7-Eleven stores are the best in the world >
7-11 Taiwan opening hours
Taiwan 7-Eleven hours vary but most are open until late and some even stay open 24 hours, particularly those Taiwan 7 Eleven stores in larger cities like Taipei or Kaohsiung.
So if you have a craving for strawberry yoghurt crisps or Hello Kitty sparkling wine at 3am in the morning, no problem!
So late were the Taiwan 7-Eleven hours, many a night, if we’d got back to our hotel late and the local night markets were closed, we would pop into the nearest Taiwan 7-Eleven, grab a couple of local microwave meals (likely with some cans of Tsing Tao) and take them back to our hotel room.
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7-Eleven Taiwan and the environment
What blew us away was Taiwan 7-Eleven’s oh so clever and plastic-free hot food carriers (the novelty of carrying it home never wore off during our entire month in Taiwan).
And to this day, we haven’t seen these incredible bags replicated in any other 7-Eleven stores in Asia; not Thailand 7-Eleven (they give away plastic bags like hot cakes – not good), nor South Korea or Malaysia etc.
Things to buy from Taiwanese 7-11s
From the cute little cartoon character stickers Taiwan 7-Eleven gave out with every purchase through to the smell of mini oden hot pots wafting through the stores, we loved exploring all the Taiwanese 7-Elevens at our ‘convenience’.
Here are some of our most delicious discoveries along with some of the more curious comestibles we came across (and updated in 2024):
Crazy Crisp / Potato Chip Flavours
From fish skin crisps to strawberry yoghurt pea crisps, tasting our way through ‘interesting’ crisp flavours in Taiwan 7-Eleven was one of our favourite travel hobbies (sad, we know).
For more conservative crisp flavours, Lay’s potato chips are also popular in Taiwan with flavours such as bbq, truffle and pepper, baked potato and nori.
You might like our guide to Weird Lay’s Potato Chip Flavours in Thailand 7-Elevens >
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Taiwan 7-Eleven Microwave Meals
Hot stuff! There are loads of microwave meals to choose from in Taiwan 7-Eleven, and all so much tastier than the UK ones – we also liked the rather fantastic (not plastic!) takeaway hot food carrier bag.
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Mini Oden Hot Pots
The contents would often vary from 7-Eleven store to store across Taiwan, but you can choose from a wide variety of items from tofu and squid balls, plus whatever flavour of instant noodles you so desire.
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Tea Eggs
In Taiwan, Chinese tea eggs (a boiled egg cracked slightly and then boiled again in tea) are a firm favourite in convenience stores.
In 7-Eleven chains alone, an average of 40 million tea eggs are sold per year (no yoke!)
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Distinctive flavoured milk / soy milk
Milk-shake it out! We were quite ‘vanilla’ in our 7-Eleven milk choices in Taiwan so we didn’t try many of these.
Soy Milk is also very popular in Taiwan and we tried flavours such as black sesame soy milk or pistacho soy milk.
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Breakfast muffins
We’d often munch on a breakfast muffin for brunch in Taiwan (or should we call it ‘7 elevenses’? A British joke there!).
Very similar (but tastier and cheaper) than the McDonald’s breakfast muffins, and they warm it up for you behind the counter – yay.
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Join our Facebook Taiwan Travel Tips Group!
Need help with your itinerary or have any Taiwan related questions? We are in Taiwan right now, so head on over to our friendly Facebook group and ask the experts!
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Instant Cup Noodles
Oodles of different noodle flavours were available in Taiwan 7-Elevens – instant satisfaction!
There are often hot urns filled with piping hot water so you can enjoy your noodles in the seating / cafe areas.
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Pringles instant noodles
Once you slurp, you’ll have to burp! To note we haven’t seen these anywhere else other than Taiwan 7-Eleven.
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Steamed Sweet Potatoes
Spud U Like! Hot sweet potatoes are usually available next to the till and are purchased based on weight.
They often do combo deals when you can buy say a sweet potato and coffee for a slightly reduced price.
You might like – Guide to things you can buy at Malaysia’s 7-Eleven stores >
Hello Kitty wine
An acquired taste and very sickly sweet (after a few cans, it starts to become ‘Hellllleurgh Kitty Wiiiiiiine).
7-Eleven Taiwan Beer
7-Elevens in Taiwan have huge chillers and fridges filled with all types of beer and pre mixed / RTD (ready to drink) alcohol.
The most common beer to buy in Taiwan 7-Eleven is the Taiwan Beer. A small can of Taiwan Beer Classic costs 34 TWD whilst a small can of standard Taiwan Beer (5% – slightly stronger) costs 37 TWD. Larger cans cost 50 TWD (prices all correct as of March 2024).
You can also also buy international beers in Taiwan 7-Eleven stores like Budweiser (USA), Super Dry Asahi (Japan), Jeju Beer (South Korea), Heineken (Holland) and Kronenbourg 1664 (France).
Check out the Heineken themed 7-Eleven complete with a Heineken lounge here >
Did you know that there are also a few Taiwan 7-Eleven stores with their own bars inside?
We’ve seen a handful of Taipei stores plus another in Kaohsiung that feature a small late night bar inside with Taiwan Beer and Buckskin beer on tap (you can also snack on goods purchased instore with your beer). Cheers to 7-Eleven! Read more in our guide to Taiwan 7-Eleven bars >
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Open Chan / 7-Eleven Merchandise Open Plaza
7-Eleven in Taiwan has its own mascot – Open Chan the alien dog.
Many stores now feature not only Open Chan branded snacks like 7-Eleven Open Chan potato chips or Doriyaki buns, but you can also buy dedicated merchandise like Open Chan plushies or plastic figures.
The collective range of 7-Eleven characters in Taiwan is known as ‘Open Plaza’.
You can also buy limited edition Open Chan figurines at special occasions like Chinese New Year in Taiwan.
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Cute Characters Merchandise
Quite unlike any other 7-Eleven we’ve been to anywhere else in the world, 7-Elevens in Taiwan often feature huge selections of cute cartoon characters and toys, from Pompompurin to Pokemon, Hello Kitty to Snoopy, Dragonball to Ultraman.
They even do exclusive character merchandise where you can only buy it in one particular store – for instance, in Taipei’s Ultraman 7-Eleven store (which opened in late 2023), there is a Ultraman Open Plaza figure that is world exclusive to that one.
See more pictures of the Ultraman 7-Eleven store in Taipei here >
Sandwiches
If you want a quick cold snack to go, ‘fresh delicious (their words) sandwiches are available from the chiller cabinet costing around the 49 TWD mark (as of 2024).
We liked the New Orleans Roast Chicken with Vegetables sandwich. We have yet to try the crayfish & egg salad sandwich, blueberry & cheese, nor the hash brown with tomato sauce sandwich.
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Taiwan Souvenirs
This might only be in the tourist areas like Taipei but on our most recent visit to Taiwan in 2024, we saw lots of stores that now have big souvenir sections selling everything from magnets to keyrings.
That said, the prices were more expensive than most dedicated souvenir shops.
Vegetarian Section / VEG World
Look in the 7-Eleven Taiwan freezer or fridge section in bigger stores and you might see a dedicated ‘Veg world’ section with lots of chilled vegetarian dishes, starting from 49 TWD and up.
Example vegetarian dishes at 7-Eleven here include stewed quinoa with pine nuts, vegan Dongshan Luwei, Veggie chicken nuggets and vegan szechuan dumplings.
Onigiri
Nice rice triangles! Although we never figured out properly how to open a Onigiri from 7-Eleven (we always make a total mess and rip the nori).
These healthy (ish) snacks are available in a range of flavours like grilled pork and salted green onion. They are inexpensive too costing around 30 TWD per portion.
Rice Balls
An egg-cellent addition to your lunchbox or as a takeaway bite, meat rice balls and soft boiled eggs in rice are a savoury snack that come in flavours such as Japanese bonito chicken rice.
The Japanese restaurant brand Co Co Curry House also has a line of chicken curry rice balls to nom on.
Hot Dogs / Starlux themed food
Since 7-Eleven announced a collaboration with Starlux, the airline who know flies direct between the USA and Taiwan, there has been a huge range of Starlux branded American style ready meals and snacks instore including juicy hot dogs.
In the special Starlux themed 7-Eleven in Taipei, the store is designed to resemble the interior of a plane plus there is even a landing strip / runway directing you to the cashier – you can enjoy Starlux coffee which is usually only served aboard the planes.
Wine and Spirits
7-Eleven Taiwan has small wine and spirit sections selling local products like Taiwan Seng Rong liquor (100 TWD) to Jegarmeister, Suntroy Whisky, One Cup Sake and Japanese Roku Gin.
Small bottles of own brand 7-Eleven ‘Premium’ Californian wine (cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay etc) can be bought starting from 149 TWD for a 360ml bottle). Wine is fairly expensive in Taiwan (and in most East Asian countries).
Other things to know about Taiwan 7-Eleven
7-Eleven have some automated / self serve vending machines at some shopping malls and train stations like this one at Taipei Main Station.
Other Asia blog posts you might like
- South Korea 7-Eleven, top things you can buy
- Best things you can buy in a Thailand 7-Eleven
- Thailand 7-Eleven Toasties – guide to all the flavours!
- Weird Lay’s Potato Chip Flavours you can find in Thailand 7-Elevens
- Tasting Swensen’s fried chicken ice cream in Thailand
- Best things to do in Taipei, Taiwan for first time visitors
- Kaohsiung for first time visitors
- The World’s largest 7-Eleven in Pattaya, Thailand
- Tainan for first time visitors
- Ultimate guide to Taichung, Taiwan
- Taiwan’s night markets – a photo essay
- Taipei day trip – a visit to Houtong Cat Village
- A trip to the Anping District in Tainan, Taiwan
- An afternoon of eating Taiwanese food on a Taipei food tour
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