This Little-known Road in Rural Taiwan Is One of the Most Beautiful Places in Asia-and It Became Famous Thanks to a Coffee Commercial

"But decades ago, a location scout for the East Asian nation's most popular canned coffee, Mr. Brown Coffee spotted its effortless beauty. Rice paddies flank the asphalt road, and rich green grass dances in the breeze as the sun's rays bathe the valley with a warm glow. Taiwan has no shortage of rice fields, but this place is unique in that the views here are unobstructed. There are no street lamps or utility poles-just a sea of shimmering grass."

"And Mr. Brown Avenue has attracted other companies to film in the area as well. Years later, when Taiwan-based carrier EVA Air joined Star Alliance in 2013, the airline tapped singer and actor Takeshi Kaneshiro for a commercial campaign called "I See You Change the Way You See the World," that started in Paris and traveled through Asia, before ending in Taiwan."

A standard two-way country road in Chishang, Taitung County, Taiwan became a visual landmark after a location scout for Mr. Brown Coffee discovered its unobstructed rice-paddy views. Rice fields flank the asphalt, with no street lamps or utility poles to interrupt the panorama. The site became known as Mr. Brown Avenue and now features a statue of the jolly Mr. Brown mascot. The road later attracted other commercial shoots, including an EVA Air campaign starring Takeshi Kaneshiro. The campaign featured Kaneshiro biking along the road and pausing under a lone Java Cedar tree, which visitors began calling the Takeshi Kaneshiro Tree, drawing large numbers of tourists.

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