Wang’s Fortune Tea Company - Culture Analysis

Wang’s Fortune Tea Company

Wang’s Fortune Tea is a Chinese herbal tea, a remedy that has been around since the 1800’s but Wang’s Fortune Tea created it into a pre-packaged reading to drink functional soft drink with a sweetened flavor. Wang’s Fortune Tea is currently the leading Chinese beverage producer, it has a dominant amount of market share, and it has successful build its own image in domestic market. According to the newly released market statistics, Wang’s fortune tea has 74% market share in tea industry, and around 12 percent market share of total beverage industry. How could a local family owned tea brand become such a national wide giant while those multinational drink producers are outcompeting other Chinese beverage firms? Let’s look at Wang’s Fortune history.

Wang’s Fortune Tea was found by a small tea house owner, name Wang zeji in Canton province, China 1837. Wang’s father was a traditional Chinese medical doctor who served the local communities for over 30 years, he passed all his knowledge and experience to Wang zeji before he died in order to make his son capable enough to take his position. However, unlike what he had planed long time ago, his son, zeji didn’t become a doctor, instead, he opened a tea house in town and started selling herbal tea, a mixture of tea and herbs in consulting to his father’s teaching. This was a revolutionary invention, because people at that time had never expected tea to serve a medical purpose, in modern term, Wang zeji’s herbal tea might be the first functional drink in the world. At the first couple years, Wang’s business was not very successful, the sales was moderate compare to other local tea sellers, because people was suspicious about whether his herbal tea is going to work or not, most importantly, they don’t like the taste, because the herbs make its taste bitter. However, Wang didn’t give up on selling his unique product despite the fact that the cost of making herbal tea is way much higher than the regular tea. In 1841, the temperature went sky high during the summer, and the heat stroke was spreading out quickly in town, many people died due to the lack of medical treatment and poor living condition, but then the miracle occurred, people found that Wang’s herbal tea was a effective remedy for healing heat stroke, whoever drink it is not likely to get heat stroke. Soon after they discover this miracle, people rush to his tea house and lining up whole night for a cup of herbal tea. Wang’s business quickly flourished and he became the largest tea seller one year later. Unlike other business man who has monopolized power, Wang didn’t choose to increase the price of his magical herbal tea, instead, he maintained the price with low profit margin, and provide free herbal tea to poor neighbors who suffered from heat stroke. Because of his kindness and generosity, people started call him Wang laoji, literally means