Tea Shop in Chi Heung Village – Kennedy Town
Created: 1938
Operator: Tea House (Wholesale & Retail)
Address: G/F, 30A Belcher Street, Kennedy Town
Goods: Chinese tea leaves, teapots and tea sets
撰文:Eliana
Photo by Jenny
Kennedy Town is like a piece of pure land in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong Island, with long ramped staircases, green trams, old-fashioned tenement buildings, old shops and so on, reminiscent of old Hong Kong. The Tram Road in front of the shop and the tea shop form a harmonious community with the tea shop at the Ki Heung Village Tea Shop, where the third generation of the shop, Lam Man Chung, tells the story of the shop.
A century-old shop
In 1938, the Lam family founded the Tea Shop at Kee Heung Village, which was originally located on Queen's Road Central, Central. Searching through the old photos of Queen's Road Central in Central, I found the signboard of "Coffee Room of Qixiang Village", and the words "Tea House of Qixiang Village" were hidden on the beams and pillars under it. Originally, the tea shop was originally operated under a "dual-track model", with the front shop serving as a café selling milk tea, sandwiches and cakes and other snacks, with the tea produced in-house to ensure the quality, and the back shop used to sell tea and set aside space for customers to drink tea, which was maintained until the 1950s. Subsequently, Kee Heung Estate moved to Stanley Street (next to Luk Yu's Tea House) and Wellington Street, and in 1966 set up a branch on the current site of Belcher Street.
The historic Chi Heung Village has witnessed the transformation of Hong Kong's tea shops and pewter factories. Many time-honored tea houses used to set up tea roasting factories in their local areas, but now some tea shops have been transferred to the factory to roast tea. Qixiang Village still insists on setting up its own local roasting factory in Kennedy Town, which is controlled by experienced roasting chefs to ensure the quality of tea leaves. In addition, in the past, many Hong Kong tea shops would order tea cans from local tinware factories. Tin cans were very common earlier than the Ming Dynasty, tin is not easy to oxidize in the air, strong sealing, can be described as "storage tea color unchanged", can prolong the tea freshness time, so tea shops like to use tin cans. Qixiang Village once commissioned Yan Yongxing, who is famous for making pewter, to order tin cans, and they are still used today. It can be seen that in the past, there was no shortage of skilled craftsmen in Hong Kong, but unfortunately with the development of society, these light industries gradually declined.
To this day, the Tea House still uses traditional chicken skin paper bags to pack tea leaves. Tin foil packaging was only introduced in the twenties and thirties, and gradually replaced the chicken skin paper bag as the relatively mainstream tea packaging, and the common tea bags are the last to be introduced. The chicken skin paper bags in Qixiang Village follow the traditional design, and in addition to the store information, the Xianhe logo and its own "Fugui Tea" printed on the surface of the bag, the types of tea sold are also listed in Lishu font on the back, showing the design beauty of the past. In the past, tea customers usually bought a year's worth of tea at a time before the New Year, usually about six catties. Although there are fewer tea customers who buy large quantities of tea at one time, Qixiang Village still provides different sizes of chicken skin paper bags to meet the needs of customers.
Three generations
Mr. Lam Man Chung, who took over the tea shop in 2007, pointed out that the business model has changed. Although the tea shop is still mainly a wholesale business, mainly supplying tea houses, it used to distribute tea to foreign countries, such as the Netherlands. The tea produced by Qixiang Village is very popular with foreigners, and foreign distributors will not only put Qixiang Village's tea on the shelves to sell in foreign supermarkets, but also foreign souvenir shops will contact Qixiang Village to purchase tea and OEM packaging. Later, due to the business consolidation, Qixiangcun wanted to focus on strengthening the establishment of brand image, rather than the previous OEM model, so it refocused its business on the local area.
Despite this, the production of Qixiang Village attracts many tourists. Boss Lin was very impressed with one of the guests. He recalls, "The guest would initially select the tea leaves in silence, but after several years of visiting the tea shops, he would exchange tea knowledge with me. Later, the guest revealed that he was a Japanese writer and said that he would compile what he saw and heard at the tea shop into a book.
Qixiang Village Tea House insists on local production. In addition to the baking, packaging and other processes are carried out in Hong Kong, Boss Lin also does everything himself. Boss Lin's family participated in the whole process of designing packaging, labeling, and manual packaging. He can be described as a "multi-functional boss" in charge of marketing, packaging design, and external sales.
Signature teas
In addition to the common varieties such as Pu'er, Tieguanyin and Oolong, the tea shop also sells some rare teas in the market, such as Ma Lu Yi and Panlong Peach, but when it comes to the signature tea of Qixiang Village, it is impossible not to mention "Fugui Tea" and "Teochew Aroma Tieguanyin".
"Fugui Tea" is a unique blend of tea in the tea industry, namely Osmanthus Alpine Oolong Tea, the recipe of which was created by Grandpa Lin Wencong in his early years. "Fugui Tea" has a rich tea rhyme, a sweet throat rhyme, and a taste similar to Chaozhou Gongfu tea. Since the family is from Chaozhou and is involved in tea-related businesses, the blending of tea recipes and tea roasting methods have the shadow of local tea culture. Although the reason for the name "Fugui Tea" is no longer exquisite, the tea shop still uses the recipe handed down from the old days, so that tea lovers can still experience the taste of tea in the past.
In addition, another signboard of Qixiang Village is "Chaozhou Fragrant Tieguanyin". "Teochew Fragrance Tieguanyin" was one of the most popular products in Qixiang Village when it opened. The reason for its popularity is related to Central's past as a maritime port. In the past, the Central store was adjacent to the multi-metre bunker, while the Victoria Permanent Pier in Central was a popular spot for cargo ships to unload goods such as grain, oil, etc. In the 30s, ships could not be loaded and unloaded directly at the docks, and cargo ships were required to be transported to the ship for unloading. At that time, all the cargo had to be carried to the ship by hand, which was a labor-intensive job. In the old days, when the common people could not afford coffee, a cup of affordable "Teochew Aroma Tieguanyin" was very refreshing and could be used as a coffee for the common people, so "Teochew Aroma Tieguanyin" was widely popular among boat people. Now, the Victoria Permanent Pier has been dismantled, and the people who moved the cargo on the ship are no longer seen. But from the story behind the tea, Qixiang Village has witnessed the development of Central and the old days.
Old meets new
Boss Lin has kept a lot of the store's traditions. After he took over, he still retained the traditional packaging, Fugui tea and the interior decoration of the store. He said, "Nirvana Tea is unique to us, and the décor and gooseskin reflect our history." At the same time, the marketing model of Kee Heung Estate has also changed due to the current information society. He believes that boutique tea estates are the future development policy of the entire tea industry, and places great emphasis on marketing, so he participated in the Hong Kong International Tea Industry Fair to attract high-end customers. Through the tea fair, the tea shop reaches out to high-end customers such as hotels and shopping malls, and the business of the tea shop also tends to diversify. In addition to supplying tea to customers, they also organise tea art seminars and tea art demonstrations to promote tea culture according to customer requirements.
In addition to developing high-end customers, Qixiangcun is also actively exploring the market of the younger generation. As early as the beginning of the 21st century, Boss Lin used his spare time to teach himself to write programs and develop web pages. With the increasing popularity of the Internet, he also runs the social media account of the tea shop himself, using social platforms to increase his popularity. Disseminate store information through social media and use it as a channel to contact customers. In addition, he also designed all the advertisements for the tea shop and carried out social media marketing. At the same time, it also sees the vigorous development of food delivery platforms and actively uses online platforms to sell products.
At the same time, he also began to dabble in product design. The color scheme, font design and even the shape of the tea cans are all designed by him. The gift box on the shelves is the third version made with customer feedback in mind. The original design of the tea cans was round cans, and after receiving customer responses, they were redesigned into square cans. The product design is based on the primary color, white as the secondary color, and then with a bronzing font. Visually, it presents a simple and sophisticated feeling to match the operation policy of the tea shop.
The future is promising
Tea has been traveling for more than 90 years and has encountered crises large and small, including the rise of bottled tea and the craze of bubble tea. These two crises are nothing compared to the impact of the new coronavirus. The epidemic has dealt a heavy blow to the tea business, especially the "two-person gathering restriction order" and the "dine-in ban on dinner markets". The shortened opening hours of tea houses have led to a significant reduction in demand for tea, with the number of pick-ups falling by nearly 70 percent, and tea shops are being asked to offer discounts. Lin Wencong said frankly, "Everyone is in the same situation, most of them are our old customers, and our relationship can be described as a cold lip, so we can only grit our teeth and offer discounts. Even with the easing of the epidemic prevention policy, it took a year for business to get back on track.
The difficulties faced by the entire industry, in addition to the problems of the business environment, are not inherited. In order to maintain the operation of the tea shop, in addition to relying on the boss at the helm, the baker uses technology to enhance the charm of the tea, which can be described as the mainstay of the tea shop. However, they have been working for many years, and the working environment is very hot, which is not easy to attract juniors, and as the bakers begin to age, the future of Hong Kong's roasted tea technology is not optimistic.
Despite this, Qixiangcun is full of confidence in the industry, believing that the development trend of the industry lies in the diversification and quality of products, and the tea shop also has innovative ideas such as capsule tea bags.
In a flower tea room, Boss Lin has already told the story of the store. The visit took place last year, when the anti-epidemic policy was slightly relaxed. At the beginning of the new year, the epidemic has once again been severe. Now that the government's anti-epidemic policy has been tightened again, there is no sign of easing, which makes people worry that the business environment of tea shops will be challenged again. It is hoped that Hong Kong will emerge from the gloom and all walks of life will emerge from the difficult period as soon as possible.
Price reference - In order to let more people understand the price positioning of long-established products, this list will be added to the special page in the future to write down the price before the main items for your reference.
富贵茶 每斤$960/ 100克$160
Teochew Oolong Tea $360 per catty / $60 per 100g
Horse Horse Cake $988 per catty / $175 per 100g