"Tea is a peaceful drink." In order to continue his grandmother’s good deeds before her death, Li Ruihe built a "conscience pavilion" in Zhangzhou, serving tea to pedestrians all day long and never stopping for 14 years.
Li Ruihe said that the 21st century is the era of China tea.
Li Ruihe loves to drink tea in his own tea house. He often chooses a place near the window and makes and tastes tea by himself. When a tea guest came, he looked kindly and greeted the guests with gentle eyes. At this point, in the eyes of uninformed people, this is just an old man dressed in plain clothes.
But in the tea industry, Li Ruihe is a legend in the industry, and everyone knows it. When he was in high spirits as a teenager, he took tea as his career and started "Tianrenming Tea" in 1961. After years of hard work, Tianren became the only listed tea company on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. In the 1990s, Li Ruihe sold his stocks and houses to pay off his debts because of the Taiwan Province stock market bubble.
At that time, Li Ruihe wrote an inscription: "Success is shared by all, and failure is my responsibility." His heart should be filled with the tragic feeling of a hero.
If you are a hero, you will never give up. In 1993, 58-year-old Li Ruihe resolutely went to the mainland to invest and rebuild his tea industry, and established "Tianfu Tea House" in his ancestral home in Zhangzhou, Fujian. "Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour gave me confidence." For the choice at that time, 14 years later, Li Ruihe was still very proud, because he grasped an excellent business opportunity. After 14 years of operation, it has grown to more than 7,000 employees, and the "Tianfu" logo is also spread all over the country, with 674 chain stores nationwide. -the ups and downs of business, and the tea industry won the international market and became the world’s tea king. Mr. Li’s entrepreneurial history is an example of mutual encouragement in the tea industry.
Seven-generation love affair with tea
Fujian is a well-known "tea town" at home and abroad. The written record of tea production in Fujian is more than 300 years earlier than Cha Sheng Luyu’s Tea Classic. It can be seen that tea culture has a long history in Fujian, with a history of more than 1,000 years.
"After we created oolong tea in the Ming Dynasty, we made Tieguanyin in the Qing Dynasty with a new technology, which became a tribute to the imperial palace in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and naturally became the hometown of famous tea in China." Li Ruihe enthusiastically introduced the tea production in various parts of Fujian. Between the talks, we can see that the old man has deep feelings for Fujian and tea.
"I am from Zhangpu, Fujian." Li Ruihe always introduces himself in this way on major occasions. After careful investigation, Mr. Li’s ancestors crossed the sea from Zhangpu to Taiwan Province more than 200 years ago and settled down in Nantou. Although they moved to Taiwan Province, their ancestors did not change careers, and they still made a living by growing tea for generations. "At that time, there was a folk song saying: Thousands of villages learn to grow tea, fir tea is planted all over the house, tea is planted to prevent old age, and the price of tea is for ten thousand families. Therefore, our ancestors have always been attached to tea and have never stopped. "
By Mr. Li Ruihe, it is already the seventh generation of "tea people". Since childhood, he has been working with his grandmother in tea fields, knowing how to grow and raise tea, and learning the skill of making tea from generation to generation.
"My grandmother is simple and is a typical good wife and mother. For tea, it is the foundation of our family business, and at the same time, tea culture is also to be taught in our family. My grandmother often takes me to the roadside pavilion to deliver tea to passers-by. Giving someone a cup of tea is a gesture of goodwill. Because tea culture pays attention to a word of harmony, harmony between people. " Li Ruihe said that tea is a peaceful drink. In order to continue his grandmother’s good deeds before her death, he built a "conscience pavilion" in Zhangzhou, which served tea for pedestrians all day long and never stopped for fourteen years. If we say that my grandmother used to give tea to passers-by more for the sake of accumulating virtue, I pray that God can help the descendants of the Li family to make a difference. Now Mr. Li Ruihe provides tea for pedestrians in the conscience pavilion, but it is to let more people become attached to tea. "I have been drinking tea since I was a child, and I am now in my seventies. After drinking tea for 70 years, it is not only a habit in southern Fujian, but also because I know that drinking tea is really beneficial to the body. " Mr. Li has a ruddy complexion, quick thinking and very light movements, unlike an old man over seventy years of age.
Li Ruihe has a deep affection for tea. If you can say that tea is good when talking with him, he will think you are good, and will talk and taste tea with you happily, and regard you as a friend. "I know that I love tea to the point of near infatuation, but it is my infatuation with tea that enables me to start my business again and make it bigger and stronger than my first career."
"Tianfuming Tea" is another village.
Taiwan Province’s stock market bubble burst in the 1990s, and Tianren Securities, a company founded by Mr. Li Ruihe, immediately fell into debt. In order to repay the debt, he had to sell the shares and real estate of Tianrenming Tea. At this point, some people think that his career has come to an end.
"Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour speech in 1992 convinced me that the mainland’s reform and opening up was successful, and it was also a good development opportunity for our Taiwanese businessmen. So, I returned home with the hope of starting a business again. " Speaking of starting a business for the second time, Mr. Li Ruihe, who has experienced the storm in the shopping mall, has a dull tone, but his eyes are shining and he has a passion that cannot be concealed. "When I returned to the mainland, I realized that I had found the root." Mr. Li, who was speaking slowly, suddenly increased his tone, and raised his right hand on the chair to his heart: "When I arrived in Zhangpu, I realized that China’s tea resources are really rich, and the tea market in China is also very large. What I have to do is to do my own tea industry with my heart. "
In 1993, Mr. Li Ruihe invested in the tea industry in Zhangpu with 10 million yuan raised from relatives and friends in Taiwan Province, established Tianfu Tea House, built his own tea production base, and processed tea with advanced technology.
"I spend every Spring Festival in Zhangpu with my employees. In 1993, I still clearly remember that there were more than 20 people. By the Spring Festival of 2006, we will have more than 700 people. The number of Tianfu employees in our country has reached more than 7,000. In these 14 years, the development has been really fast. " Mr. Li recalled Tianfu’s entrepreneurial process and said.
In 1994, Mr. Li Ruihe once vowed to establish 100 tea chain stores in major cities in mainland China within ten years. At that time, many people thought it was impossible. However, Tianfu’s development is better than Mr. Li’s expectation. So far, Tianfu Tea House has opened 674 direct chain stores in major and medium-sized cities in mainland China. From 2003 to 2005, Tianfu Group reported and paid 24.94 million yuan, 28.54 million yuan and 37.39 million yuan to the local tax authorities respectively, and the tax amount was as high as 90.87 million yuan.
Mr. Li Ruihe loves tea, makes tea industry, and preaches tea culture with all his heart. Perhaps at first he just popularized tea culture out of his affection for tea, but as far as an enterprise is concerned, the promotion of tea culture has expanded and strengthened the tea market.
At the beginning of 2000, Li Ruihe decided to invest in the establishment of Tianfu Tea Museum, with the theme of "studying tea science and inheriting tea culture". Covering an area of 80 mu, the museum is divided into four buildings, namely, the main building area for displaying tea history and the performance area for displaying tea ceremony. "People in China have been drinking tea for more than three thousand years. Why are they compared with coffee and coke? This is mainly because the tea culture in China has not been inherited and developed. Tea drinking in Japan was spread from China in the Song Dynasty, but they knew how good tea was, and kept it going, making tea ceremony kung fu to the extreme. Why can’t we in China do it? Or because we modern people know too little about tea, so I built the Tianfu Tea Museum in the hope that our younger generation can understand the tea in our country, which has a valuable culture. "
More than 100 years ago, China tea monopolized the world tea market. Today, 100 years later, the world’s tea sales are 180 billion yuan, while the China tea market is only 18 billion yuan. At present, the planting area of tea in China ranks first in the world, but the output ranks second, and the export ranks third. At the same time, the value of tea has not been well tapped, and China’s foreign exchange earning value of tea ranks fourth in the world. The data shows that China is still in an embarrassing situation of being a big tea country rather than a strong one.
"The tea market in China can’t be strong, mainly because of the restriction of family workshops. The production process cannot be innovated and promoted. " A professor from China Agricultural University once pointed out the shortcomings of China’s tea industry at the meeting. Mr. Li Ruihe also saw these clearly, so he decided to add modern and scientific production technology to the traditional tea culture, so as to take China tea to a higher level. In 2005, he once again invested in the establishment of Tianfu Tea Vocational and Technical College "to train professionals in the tea industry", with an investment of 200 million yuan. "The establishment of Tianfu Tea College meets the needs of the development of tea industry and is also an important step in the internationalization of China tea industry." In an interview with reporters, Mr. Chen Zongmao of China Academy of Engineering praised Li Ruihe’s development strategy of "thinking and doing".
21st century, the era of China tea.
Tea, coffee and cola have become the top three international drinks.
"The Tang Dynasty had the rule of Zhenguan, and it was a prosperous time. Ambassadors from all over the world came to Tang to communicate and learned about China tea. Since then, tea has become a popular drink. " Mr. Li laughed and said that he was also surnamed Li, and he was a descendant of Li Shimin in the Tang Dynasty. If his ancestors started the prosperous Tang Dynasty, he should at least revive the tea culture and make China tea popular in the world.
"China tea to go international, first of all, we should do a good job in the domestic market. Only when the foundation at home is good can we take a step outside. " When talking about the internationalization process of China tea industry, Mr. Li Ruihe pointed out that the foundation should be laid before expansion.
"In the 1990s, when I first returned to the mainland, I found that on average, each of us only drank more than 200 grams of tea a year, which was quite a small number. With the development of tea industry, we are more and more aware of the health, fitness and intelligence functions of tea drinks, and this number has increased, and the statistics of some departments have reached 500 grams. This is a great progress, but compared with some countries with the same level of economic development, there is still a lot of room. Every person in Taiwan Province drinks 1,200 grams of tea every year. In Britain, it is 2500 grams. " Based on the estimation of the market development space, Mr. Li Ruihe set a new goal for the number of chain stores in Tianfu nationwide: "We intend to open Tianfu to 3,000 stores all over the country."
"Although China is a big tea country, it is not a strong tea country." Liu Nianyan, an expert from the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, pointed out with regret the pain of tea merchants in China. Analyzing the reasons, Liu Nianyan said: "First of all, it is a family-style, small-scale and traditional tea production and marketing model, so it is impossible to provide a modern tea service system. This has formed its own shackles for continuing to open up new markets. "
Tianfu, based on the founding experience of "Tianrenming Tea" in Taiwan Province, has set a modern and scientific example for mainland tea merchants.
Not to mention the establishment of the Tea Institute and the opening of the Tea Museum, Tianfu’s tea-making technology has used advanced equipment and carried out scientific management in the production process. At the same time, paying attention to brand building is also an important reason for Tianfu’s rapid recognition by guests. In the past, one of the factors that China tea industry has been hesitating is related to the small and miscellaneous tea brands. Tianfu, since its inception, has paid attention to building and maintaining brands.
In 1997, Tianfu Group’s product "813 Tea King" became the designated drink of the APEC meeting held in Vancouver, Canada, which was a breakthrough of China tea and also sounded the horn of China tea era.
In 2001, Tianfu Alpine Tea King once again became the meeting tea of APEC.
Because the drinks in the first two APEC meetings were provided by Tianfu, and they were well received by officials from various countries, in 2005, the APEC meeting held in Busan, South Korea naturally designated Tianfu products for the third time.
In these important international activities, Tianfu products are frequently praised by friends from all over the world, which makes Tianfu’s step into the international market a natural thing.
"Tea is a drink of peace." When Li Ruihe was an enterprise, he was actually doing culture. He said that Tianfu Group has opened stores in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and other countries, and he hoped that international friends could have tea in Tianfu and get to know a warm and hospitable China.
Li Ruihe said that the 21st century is the era of China tea.
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Editor: Wei Liangchun
