One day, Zhang Dai heard that the tea from Min Wenshui was very good. His friends said that he "doesn't talk about tea." So Zhang Dai took a boat to Taoyedu Huaruzhai, the residence of Min Wenshui in Nanjing, the capital of Nanjing. From the name, he thought it was the residence of an expert.
But the owner was not at home, so Zhang Dai was waiting there. After playing 5 games of Glory of Kings, Min Wenshui appeared, but he didn’t look like a master. He was just a "whirling old man". To put it bluntly, Just an old man.
Old Man Min didn’t seem to pay much attention to this great talent, and said, “Oh, I left something somewhere, I’ll be back in a while.”
The result was as soon as it was over. Six hours later, darkness fell and the stars were shining brightly. Master Min came back and found that Mr. Zhang had not left yet.
"I'm just here to drink your tea today. I won't leave until you drink it."
The old man rolled his eyes at the boy and thought he might as well make one to see if he understands. Understand.
It seems like it was late, but it was so fast. The old man seemed to be 20 years younger suddenly. He boiled water to make tea and poured out the soup in 0.8 seconds. The operation was sharp and lightning fast.
...
After a fight, I found that the scholar in front of me really knew tea, so the two laughed and became good friends.
From then on, Zhang Dai and Mr. Min kept in constant contact, and Taoye Du also became the gateway to the literati, scholars and beauties of the late Ming Dynasty.
Calligrapher Dong Qichang, dramatist Ruan Dacheng, and the then popular young model Wang Yueshen were all regular visitors here. Zhang Dai met Wang Yueshen here and wrote an article about their indescribable things that was passed down to future generations.
So the question is, why is Min tea so delicious?
Historical records indicate that it was due to the production process that he improved the Usnea tea at that time. It was so delicious that even Dong Qichang insisted on mentioning it to him. However, is the popularity of Min tea really that simple?
In my opinion, in addition to the production process, Min Wenshui is like a person who has traveled through time and uses modern thinking.
1 Redefine the way of drinking tea
Before that, we drank tea from a cup, which was larger than the current bowl. Now the tea sets in Japanese tea ceremony are larger. It was used before the Ming Dynasty.
The small teacups we use now did not exist at the beginning. In the vast history books, Min Wenshui was the first to use it.
You may be thinking, isn’t this just a wine glass? Congratulations, you got the answer right. It's a wine cup. Old Min used the cup used for drinking to drink tea, emphasizing sipping carefully, which caused an uproar in the tea world at the time.
The feeling is just like when I first started using Apple. I discovered that my mobile phone can also be used as a computer, and it actually has such an operation.
2 Personality is king, brand strategy
Min Tea was worthy of being a “well-known trademark in China” at that time. Dong Qichang even found many counterfeit goods and reminded Min Wenshui to pay attention to intellectual property rights. Add some fake elements to the packaging.
In the past, tea production was mainly based on place names. For example, Huqiu tea was produced in Huqiu, and Minwenshui named the brand after its own name. Like Luo Yonghao and Wong Lao Kat, it used a personified image to inject strong power into the brand. vitality.
3 Big V communication and community operation
Personalized brands bring social effects and require big V communication. Big V fans such as Dong Qichang, Wang Yuesheng, Zhang Dai, etc. also brought their own traffic, forming a secondary spread.
At this time, Huaruzhai was not only a place where Mr. Min sold tea, but also a high-end social place at that time.
Min Tea’s VIP customers can exchange business cards here, hold teacups, recite poems, and pretend to be joking.
A tea becomes more than just a tea when it has literary inscriptions, celebrity endorsements, popular elements, and interesting stories. And tea is still tea. Whether it is a courtesy exchange or a solitary taste, it conveys the most authentic warmth in the world.
Many people ask me: I like tea very much and I think I know a lot about tea. Am I suitable for the tea business? My answer is that understanding tea and selling tea are two-dimensional things. Selling tea requires the knowledge structure of marketing, management, and even public relations. If you don’t have time to read, first take a look at what the masters of the Ming Dynasty did. A tea seller.
Unknowingly, 2018 is only half a month away. I wish everyone good luck and have a good cup of tea.