[People Archives]
Name: Ye Zhiqiang
Company: Dongguan Lerenguzang Tea Co., Ltd.
Title: Changxing. Director of Lerengu Tea Culture Museum
In the afternoon of interviewing Ye Zhiqiang, lightning and thunder were roaring outside the window, and the "dragon boat water" poured down. We were in the tea room of Lerengu Tea Culture Museum to "sigh the tea". The fragrance of the Dongguan is lingering. The surrounding display cabinets are placed in different categories. Leaning in the warm yellow light, there is a sense of time staggering.
Who is this?
" Tibetan Tea Capital" Dongguan is truly worthy of its reputation. Teahouses and teahouses are scattered in the streets and alleys. According to the " Dongguan Daily ", the number of various types of tea collected by Dongguan is about 400,000 tons, and the average annual tea transaction amount reaches 5 billion yuan. The Lerengu Tea Culture Museum, founded by Ye Zhiqiang in Changxing Tea Cang, Gaobu Town, has attracted much attention in the past two years and has become a "holy place for check-in" for internet celebrities...
In the afternoon of that day, even though the thunder roared, a group of guests from Guangzhou still arrived as promised. As the director of the museum, whenever he has time, he will definitely explain in "Guanpu" (Dongguan Mandarin). It will take about an hour to go there. As the collector, creator and operator of the museum, he is indeed the best candidate for commentary. He said that this "happiness is never tired of" comes from the charm of tea culture, and of course there are other considerations.
"We have officially opened the museum, and we need to constantly determine a more accurate and complete explanation template in the explanation so that the tour guide can quickly grasp it in the future."
Ye Zhiqiang is 50 years old this year and is full of energy. "The tea culture museum is opened because from liking tea to managing tea to sharing tea (culture)," said Ye Zhiqiang.
Dongguan Lerengu Tea Culture Museum was founded in 2015 and is a folk tea culture museum founded by Dongguan Lerenguzang Tea Co., Ltd. The brand "Leren Valley" has undergone several major transformations from operating audio to catering, real estate and other industries, and then entering the tea industry. From the mid-1990s, the Tea Culture Museum has been dedicated to its collections from scratch and gradually increasing in scale, which has condensed more than 20 years of hard work.
Today, the museum covers an area of 1,250 square meters, with a total collection of about 8,000 pieces (sets). Since the Song Dynasty, it spans many historical periods such as the Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Republic of China, and the early founding of the People's Republic of China. The collections mainly include tea, tea utensils, tea tickets, tea jars, tea books, , tea newspapers, tea documents, tea decorations, tea furniture, tea making equipment and other categories. From the "Belt and Road" to the "Ancient Tea-Horse Road", the vastness and magnificence of Chinese tea culture are presented in real objects. In the exhibition hall of
, you can see a volume of palace examination papers of Qing Dynasty , see the importance of the national tea economy, see Chen Ce , guarded by Humen Haigong, Dongguan; several wooden seals and carved plates from the Ming and Qing dynasties, make people feel the brand awareness of the old tea account; a set of sketches returning from the late Qing Dynasty, showing the series of scenes of Chinese tea from seed harvesting to sales by foreigners at that time...
palace examination papers of
sketches
home has a mine?
Ye Zhiqiang grew up in an ordinary family in Daojiao Town. He has worked in a factory, opened a breeding farm, and opened a restaurant with his friends. Later, he ran an antique business with his younger brother. It was this professional experience that made Ye Zhiqiang become interested in old artifacts, impressed by the wisdom and artistic level of "ancestors", and gradually came into contact with some collecting predecessors and the "ways" of collecting old artifacts. It was not until after doing real estate that I had more funds that I gradually increased my collection.
"Dongguan's own historical conditions are not as good as those ancient and famous cities with history. There are more collections from the outside, so bribery is the main method. There are a lot of buyers and collectors, and transactions are more active. It happens from time to time to spend all the money on the collection. It is actually light to sell iron. There are many people who borrow money and collect things."
"The tuition fee is indeed required in the early stage. It may be a few of them that charge 10 items. It may be right and good for collecting 10 items. These are both costly and hurting self-confidence. You must always adjust your state from frustration. Always gradually open up the situation in bitterness first and then sweetness.
"It is often in a state of 'lack of money'. When the collection volume increases, the family will worry that it will not be able to collect' for many years, for fear that it will eventually form some negative assets that are difficult to revitalize and will not be worth the loss."
Ye Zhiqiang sighed, which requires more time and energy.
"It took me about 20 years to collect these collections, almost all over the country, as well as some countries in the United Kingdom, Japan and Southeast Asia. Every time I go on a business trip, I must go to the local antique market and museum."
"Tea Tibetan" can be said to have opened the door to Ye Zhiqiang's relationship with tea, and also combined collection and tea culture promotion! In 2005, Ye Zhiqiang and his friends were traveling in Tibet. The butter tea from Tibetans immediately "captured" his taste bud cells. After careful investigation, it turned out that it was made of Tibetan tea made from aged , mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. Afterwards, Ye Zhiqiang took some tea and gave it to his friends to Dongguan. Unexpectedly, he unexpectedly won the pursuit of many people, which aroused his interest in collecting old teas. In the following years, he entered Tibet many times, contacted local Tibetans, supply and marketing cooperatives and temples, and obtained a considerable number of old teas.
"Because the Tibetan area is relatively large and we don't understand the language, we cannot communicate with Tibetans. So I invited more than a dozen friends from Aba, Sichuan to go to the Tibetan area. Sometimes I drive, sometimes ride horses, sometimes walk, and go door to door to recycling."
Tiang tea
From operating a tea shop to share the health benefits of Tibetan tea with tea friends, to creating a museum to promote tea culture. As a "believers" of tea culture, Ye Zhiqiang is getting further and further along this road.
"I think tea is sticky. Tea can narrow the distance between people and solve many problems."
is in the museum with culture and culture
, it is difficult for you to associate such a money-burning museum with a "folk museum".
Leren Valley Tea Culture Museum is divided into 18 display areas, with more than 20 display units, five cultural theme windows, a library, a film and television hall, two tea drinking spaces with different scenes, as well as tea cultural and creative products sharing and public activity areas. The operation team has more than ten people, and they are willing to invest in the design of the exhibition hall. Ye Zhiqiang visited dozens of museums to learn from their strengths and weaknesses. He invited a professional design team to do overall decoration, and used the role of sound and light to add intelligent devices, which improved the autonomy, fun and convenience of the experience interaction. It is worth mentioning that this decoration design has won the International Design Award. The construction and operation of the
museum took a long time, span and wide range. It not only consumed huge manpower and material resources, but also gave up many opportunities to obtain profits through other product operations. It experienced and endured efforts and pressure for cultural accumulation and perseverance.
"No one will build a museum to make money. When you build a museum, you must be prepared in this regard. Museums can only add profit models on the basis of satisfying public welfare."
Ye Zhiqiang, a businessman, called it the "cultivating culture with culture" model.
"You can only make blood by yourself. This is what I mentioned that we are working on to cultivate culture through culture. Although the progress and results are not fast, since last year, we have gradually seen the dawn and have gradually increased profits."
Justice Cup
A fair cup in the middle of the Qing Dynasty is a must-see utensil for visiting the Lerengu Tea Museum. There is a small porcelain man in the tea bowl in the middle. As long as the tea water poured into the cup overflows the neck of the porcelain man, the whole cup of water will flow out from the bottom of the cup without a drop. Ye Zhiqiang said that the ancients used the wisdom of the siphon principle to invent this "justice cup" and used a small tea cup to warn the world that if it is too full, it is fair, and it is not greedy. Ye Zhiqiang, who is a business-minded person, used the interesting creativity of the ancients to develop the same cultural and creative product, but replaced the villain in the middle with the Dongguan market flower "Magnolia" according to local conditions, which will be available in July and enter the homes of ordinary people.In addition to the Justice Cup, there are also "Fu Lu Shou" tea gift , "small pot tea" tailor-made for Guangdong people to lament morning tea....
Fu Lu Shou Tea gift
"These cultural and creative products are generally sold at several hundred yuan, and ordinary people can afford it"
The annual income of the Palace Museum's cultural and creative industry is 1.5 billion! Before the Forbidden City’s cultural and creative products became popular, Ye Zhiqiang was thinking about how to open up the market and make young people fall in love with tea culture and Chinese traditional culture. Ye Zhiqiang's son, who is in his early 20s, is now a member of the museum's operation team.
In addition to developing cultural and creative products based on collections, the museum is also doing cultural service output, mainly focusing on providing planning and construction services for tea or other types of cultural centers, museums, cultural spaces, etc., in order to increase revenue and optimize collections.
His vision
has many tags on Ye Zhiqiang, tea merchant, collector, or cultural communicator?
As a tea merchant, he was satisfied with his hobbies and completed his original accumulation.
As a collector, he has 8,000 collections, and he is not satisfied with it. It is still constantly discovering and absorbing folk collections. In addition to tea culture, it also includes newspapers, calligraphy and paintings, ancient books and some old-time notes. For example, the second edition of the People's Daily on May 7, 1984 (reported the deeds of the people of Gaobu to raise funds to build a bridge, highly praised the innovative spirit of Gaobu people), the first issue of Dongguan Daily in 1986, etc. The number and types of tea bills in the Lerengu Tea Culture Museum are comparable to that of a large tea culture museum. Any bill can tell an unheard of past. According to Ye Zhiqiang, he is currently preparing to jointly build the second and third museums with well-known businesses, namely thematic museums and bill museums related to year 1978. "It has entered the site selection and planning stage, and multiple partners have been screened." The last tag of
seems to be the most suitable for what Ye Zhiqiang is doing now.
"My dream is to make the Lerengu Tea Culture Museum recognized by its tea industry peers in Dongguan, Guangdong and even the whole country, and strive to gain a place among well-known museums in China."
In addition to promoting tea culture, Ye Zhiqiang also has an extraordinary obsession in promoting Dongguan culture. Many exhibits in the museum can be seen. In a conspicuous position, there is a book called "Chhashan Township Chronicles" in Dongguan, which records the historical texts of monks in Chashan Town during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, proving that Dongguan's tea culture has a long history. In the interview with
, Ye Zhiqiang repeatedly mentioned the famous Dongguan scholar Yang Baolin . "Teacher Yang is the pioneer and disseminator of Dongguan culture." The museum contains the teaching materials compiled by Teacher Yang in the early days. He selected them from many books and materials, and then neatly carved and printed them for students' writing reference, including some descriptions of tea.
"These textbooks have become unique collections in the museum. They are not only a portrayal of Teacher Yang's hard work in teaching and education, but also a touch of adding a strong color to Dongguan's tea culture."
