1. The tea shop in the doorway
In the late Qing Dynasty, Mr. Wu from Shexian County, Huizhou followed a famous scholar to Beijing for a trial, and took some tea with him when he went out. When he arrived in Beijing, Juren was busy taking exams. In his spare time, Mr. Wu set up a tea stall in a gate on the east side of Beixinqiao Street Road. The tea was sold out within a few days. The attentive Mr. Wu discovered that in the inner city, where Manchus and Han people live most densely, people, rich or poor, high or low, like to drink tea regardless of anything. After failing the exam, you have to stay in Beijing to study hard and wait for the next semester to take the exam again. He sent Mr. Wu back to his hometown in She County to get some silver coins for him. Mr. Wu returned to his hometown and brought back as much tea as he could, and officially started the tea business in Beijing.
2. Wu Yutai, a century-old Huizhou merchant
After several years of hard work, the Wu family accumulated some silver, so they bought this gate, repaired it, and built it into a shop front. In 1887 (the thirteenth year of Guangxu), the teahouse was officially opened with a plaque, and it has a history of more than 100 years. At that time, Wu Yutai Tea House mainly focused on warehousing, transportation and wholesale sales. In order to expand their business, the Wu family bought all the deserted mansion (about fifteen acres) connected behind the gate. Mrs. Wu rebuilt the entire courtyard and built about fifty rooms surrounding the group. A large gatehouse was also built at the southern end of the courtyard (north of Luotuo Hutong Road), which the people of Beijing call Wu Yutai Courtyard.
3. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust
Before his death, Mr. Wu divided all his property into five equal parts and wrote five notes respectively for his five sons. Drawing lots, whoever gets the share will get the share of the property. It just so happens that the five sons picked up "benevolence", "righteousness", "propriety", "wisdom" and "faithfulness" in the order from oldest to youngest. So the three brothers who caught "Li", "Zhi" and "Xin" discussed to merge their respective properties such as shops and houses and operate them together. In order to facilitate management, the three brothers established a management organization and named it "Li Zhixin Brothers Company".
4. Occupying Kyoto and expanding Tianjin Gate
At the beginning of the 20th century, tea merchants from other places stopped coming to Beijing. Tea houses that operate retail businesses in Beijing first buy tea in bulk from Tianjin, and second, rely on local wholesalers to purchase tea at the place of origin. The expansion of the market has provided unprecedented opportunities for the rapid development of tea merchants such as Wu Yutai Teahouse, whose main business is wholesale. Li Zhixin Brothers Co., Ltd. saw huge business opportunities from the development of Tianjin, so they seized the opportunity at the right time, implemented the strategy of focusing on peripheral development, opened the tea house to Tianjin, and built Tianjin Yusheng Tea House in the Beidaguan area of ??Tianjin. Yusheng Tea House is mainly engaged in wholesale business and is developing very fast. Later, it even replaced the sales position of "Wu Yutai" in Tianjin, forming the main source of profit for Li Zhixin Brothers.
5. A century-old brand with long-standing reputation
After hundreds of years of development, what kind of customers does the Beijing tea market serve? Is it a wealthy aristocrat or a common person? Borrowing a couplet from that year: "Every industry in Kyoto is luxurious, how many rich and powerful families there are; the people in the ancient city are still frugal, after all, most of them are small families." Wu Yutai's business policy and attitude of choosing to serve the common people won the society I agree, there were no chain stores back then, so people from outside the city had to travel dozens of miles to buy tea from Wu Yutai Tea House. Wu Yutai Tea House is like a giant pillar supporting Beijing's sales sky, becoming the tea house with the largest revenue in Beijing.