Tu Zonghe, chairman of Hanlin International Tea Beverage. (File photo)
Tainan founder of Hanlin Teahouse, Tu Zonghe, who is known as the "Father of Treasure Milk", was diagnosed on June 26 and passed away the next day. He was cremated on June 28. People in the tea industry kept a low profile among his family members. I was shocked after it was confirmed. Zheng Daocong, a close friend who has known Tu for 41 years and the founding president of the Tainan Tea Association, said with red eyes, "He is so strong and well-maintained, so sudden!" Yesterday, June 30, Tu Zonghe turned 73 years old On my birthday, "It's still hard to adjust to my mood."
Hanlin Teahouse and Chun Shuitang once competed with each other over who was the founder of pearl milk tea , and they even went to court over this, which caused a lot of noise. Hanlin Tea Beverage Business Group includes Hanlin Tea House, Hanlin Tea House, etc., and its business territory has expanded to the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia and other places. Hanlin Precious Milk was also served at the state banquet in 2017 and 2018, and Tu Zonghe also served it during his lifetime. I want to put my brand on the market.
Tu Zonghe was born in Xuejia, Tainan. Due to his father's early death, he went out to work before graduating from junior high school. He first studied painting and opened an art gallery. After getting married, he ran Tainan's first fried and grilled restaurant on Kangle Street. Personal hot pot "Golden Hot Pot"; after the hot pot business failed, because of my love for tea, I enrolled in hojicha and switched to selling tea drinks.
Tu opened the first "Hanlin Tea House" in Tainan City in 1986. After moving four times, it settled at its current location opposite Chikan Tower. In October of the same year, he saw rice balls at the Yamuliao vegetable market, so he mixed rice balls and milk tea to create his own "pearl milk tea". It was winter at that time, and customers drank hot pearl milk with a spoon, which became a trend. At that time, there were no thick straws for sucking large pearls, so he found a raw material factory to produce straws for drinking pearl milk.
Tu Zonghe, who had a heart disease and had a stent , was diagnosed and passed away. Many tea lovers posted messages to express their condolences: "Have a good journey." Zheng Daocong wrote a poem to mourn "The flowers bloom and fade. When the flowers bloom, wine is the language of our youth, and tea is the scenery of life. The flowers fade, and suddenly you reach the sunset, which is the domain of the gods. Although there are no flowers, no wine, and No tea, here are our thoughts, thinking of your departure."
Zheng Daocong revealed that due to the epidemic, the two have been in contact through Line for the past two years, and they only made an appointment two weeks ago to "get together after the epidemic." He He also reminded the other party to pay attention to epidemic prevention. He also called an old friend last Saturday, but he couldn't read back. Unexpectedly, he heard the sad news of his death two days later.
