The real pot coffee brand story brings the coffee to the mainland.

Real pot coffee Jianwai SOHO store has become the 73rd store in China and the 847th branch in the world.

Would you like a cup of hot coffee? Of course, you can give yourself many reasons not to drink coffee, such as the taste is too bitter, the price is too high, a waste of time, etc., but this does not prevent a Taiwan veteran from opening one coffee shop after another under your nose. These cafes look the same: bright, spacious and elegant, covering an area of 150-200 square meters, with 10-12 waiters, landscapes hanging on the walls, horizontal plaques of "charcoal coffee" hanging above the counter, and soft Japanese music in their ears. In this ring, can you resist the temptation when the black coffee beans are roasted in a charcoal fire, then crushed in a coffee machine, poured into boiling water, and finally filtered by filter paper and placed warm in front of you?

Fall into a real pot "trap"

In the 4-story Xiaobai Building, 85 Huating Road, Shanghai, he has been baking his "real pot coffee" continuously in the mainland for six years.

The charcoal fire in the Chinese headquarters of this real pot is not extinguished, like a spark, spreading from Shanghai, Suzhou, Changsha, Nanchang and Hangzhou to Dalian. Real pot coffee is the largest coffee chain in Taiwan-100 stores have an annual turnover of NT $800m (160 million yuan). In the mainland, the real pot now has 30 chain stores, with a daily turnover of between 6000 and 20000 yuan. When you know that the gross profit margin of this industry is about 30%, you will understand why Zhang Zhende is obsessed with the aroma of coffee.

However, it is a little hard to believe that Zhang Zhende's first step on the road to coffee was purely a helpless act of "riding a tiger". You can even use words such as inadvertently inserting willows, blind cats and meeting dead rats to describe the situation.

Yes, Zhang Zhende didn't even drink coffee before he started the coffee chain. The son of a farmer born in rural Taichung in 1950 had to go to a free public school because his family was poor, and then became a professional soldier for 20 years. After retiring from the army, because he was not willing to spend the rest of his life by receiving a lifetime salary equivalent to 10,000 yuan, in 1993, Zhang Zhende opened a company to sell real estate on a consignment basis. The company of 10 people made a profit of 3 to 4 million yuan a year. What Zhang Zhende never dreamed was that the real pot of coffee, founded in Tokyo in 1970 by the son of a wealthy timber businessman in Hokkaido, Japan, would have a relationship with him in 1995 and changed his life for the rest of his life.

The famous real pot coffee, which has opened nearly thousands of stores all over the world, was officially introduced to Taiwan by Taiwanese Lin Chaomu in 1992. At the beginning of the real pot, through the vigorous promotion of TV advertising, the momentum of development is very good. In addition to making a real pot coffee chain, Lin Chaomu also makes a chain of beer houses, both of which make a lot of money. But in 1995, due to poor judgment, Lin Chaomu had a financial crisis when he was doing another business. The Taiwan headquarters of the real pot is upstairs with Zhang Zhende's real estate company. Lin Chaomu often turns to Zhang Zhende with some long-term cheques in exchange for cash to solve his financial crisis.

At first, it was changed by 1 million or 2 million, but after changing 20 million, Lin Chaomu could not even write a check. He asked Zhang Zhende to choose from his own coffee chain and brewery chain. The discount for a chain system was about 70 to 80 million. At the end of 1995, Zhang Zhende gave a total of 30 million yuan to Lin Chaomu with the 20 million yuan already paid, plus the insurance premium, and obtained the ownership of the whole real pot coffee chain system.

"it's hard for me to ride a tiger. If I don't take it away, all my money is gone." Zhang Zhende, who had never had coffee before, had to drink coffee every day and listened to people talk about coffee. It took him nearly two years to get a clear picture of the whole story and how to manage the coffee before he really began to make it himself. Soon after Zhang Zhende took over the real pot coffee, he shut down the real estate company and "wholeheartedly made coffee." by this time, the real pot already had more than 40 chain stores. But when Zhang Zhende actually went to make coffee, he found that he had fallen into the "real pot trap." A year after Zhang Zhende took over, a lot of debts hidden by Lin Chaomu began to break out, the island's economy was depressed, and many people came to collect debts, but Lin Chaomu ran away. "this is the hidden debt I generated before I bought it, and I have no way to pay it at all." To this end, Zhang Zhende had to draw a clear line with the previous real pot and spent nearly 10 million yuan a year to change the trademark of the real pot from "Manabe" to "Kohikan (Japanese" coffee shop ").

Brew coffee to the mainland

At the end of 1996, there were more than 70 real pot stores in Taiwan. Zhang Zhende felt that there was limited room for development in Taiwan, so he decided to open a shop in Shanghai. In January 1998, Zhenpan's first store opened in Huating Road, Shanghai, which soon won the recognition of Shanghainese who are rich in Shanghai-style cultural genes. The real pot stood out in Shanghai at that time, and it hatched the so-called "foreign coffee" market. But the situation changed on May 4, 2000. Starbucks landed in Shanghai like a mermaid. Taking advantage of its rich capital and experience, Starbucks swam 13 mermaids from under the nose of a real pot in just one year, opening an average of one store a month.

At the end of 2001, Zhang Zhende plans to relocate in Shanghai to "rectify the real pot coffee system." But his wife Lin Yingxiu heard a lot of bad news about the mainland in Taiwan and had been worried about her husband's personal safety and business. she even cried secretly and asked her husband to give up the mainland market.

Just like giving up real estate to make coffee, the persistent Zhang Zhende persevered. His wife Lin Yingxiu and his second daughter have followed him to settle in Shanghai, while the eldest daughter has stayed in Taiwan.

A small coffee bean, in the slight heat of charcoal fire, the fragrance, bitterness, sour, mellow and sweet taste floated from Taiwan to Shanghai, and the joys and sorrows of a Taiwanese businessman's family have been diffusing in the unique taste of this coffee for six years. Of course, the smell also includes a "struggle" with Starbucks.

Starbucks if you are a white-collar worker in an office building with a little bit of bourgeoisie, you will become both a real pot and a "target" of Starbucks. They all spare no effort to promote their own coffee culture, telling consumers that they all choose the best coffee beans in the world. Are you responding to the "national coffee" of the real pot or to the "third space" created by Starbucks? The choice may be a little difficult. However, as long as you walk into the real pot and Starbucks respectively, you will clearly feel the difference between the two.

In a real pot, Zhang Zhende will ask the waiter to bring a glass of ice water before drinking coffee to purify the taste so that the coffee can be tasted better, and then the waiter will patiently brew it with unbleached filter paper to reduce the damage to the original taste. At this time, there are often waiters standing by. Starbucks is a completely free, self-help way, random sofas can be moved, each table is 0.5-2 meters apart, and there is no waiter staring at you. The Starbucks counter is open, where the coffee brewing process is visible, while the real pot insists on adding a piece of transparent glass in front of the counter.

When it comes to Starbucks, Zhang Zhende has a subtle feeling in his words. The specialty of the real pot is charcoal coffee, which is baked with charcoal fire to retain the original flavor of the coffee, while Starbucks mainly deals in Italian espresso, steamed with high-pressure machines. Zhang Zhende was initially dismissive of Starbucks' espresso: "Milk, coffee and milk foam each account for 1 / 3 in a cup of espresso, but the quality of milk is more important than coffee." In the cafe, did you come for milk or coffee? " But when Starbucks' cappuccino and latte attract a lot of customers, espresso also appears on the real pot menu.

Cautious Zhang Zhende pays attention to every detail of Starbucks, and he even sends special people to Starbucks to "scout" to understand the operation of opponents and learn from experience. Starbucks background music is a unified American jazz, real pot used to have unified music, and then chaos, Zhang Zhende had to reunify, just like Starbucks. Starbucks per cup in 18-28 yuan, divided into large, medium and small three specifications, while the price of the real pot is on the high side, ranging from 15-68 yuan, the cup specification is single, the real pot has to quietly reduce the price of some coffee in the face of competition from Starbucks. But in the way of developing chain stores, Real Pot insists on distinguishing it from Starbucks. Starbucks has relatively strong financial strength, it adopts a direct marketing approach to develop the chain, and the investment of each store is 3 million yuan, while Zhang Zhende adopts a mixed route of direct marketing and franchise, and the franchisee pays 1.2 million yuan per store, and the real pot provides management and training. in this way, you can use chicken to lay eggs and save strength to compete with Starbucks. In terms of location, we can also see the difference between the two styles: Starbucks will choose prosperous areas and places with a large number of rich people, so it may have two stores in a certain area, while Zhang Zhende arranges the location more evenly according to the Japanese standard that 50,000 people have a coffee shop.

In Shanghai, the real pot is still in the limelight, while in Beijing, Starbucks keeps the real pot firmly under it. The real pot shop in Beijing closed in a few months. But Zhang Zhende will never let go of the Beijing market, and he is bound to make a comeback. In August 2002, the real pot shop in Beijing will be reopened.

So it was changed by coffee.

Every morning, Zhang Zhende would sit down in the real pot coffee shop, order one of his favorite Nanshan coffee, pour in milk and sugar, stir it a little, and then eat the cakes with the coffee while watching the service of the staff. This is Zhang Zhende's breakfast ceremony every day.

"I've gone from drinking one or two cups of coffee a day to four or five cups a day." Coffee changes Zhang Zhende, in addition to his occupation, living habits and character. Zhang's friends commented that since he made coffee, the son of the former "wooden and silent" Taichung farmer and the small boss of the real estate company who took care of 10 people has become more shrewd and leisure. after all, he has to run the coffee chain system with more than 1000 people among suppliers, franchisees, and employees.

Zhang Zhende is good at doing business by figuring out the temperament of mainlanders. When the real pot first arrived in Shanghai, it used to hand out free coffee vouchers in many places, but few people came to drink coffee. Zhang Zhende thinks that these people may be worried that the real pot will charge other fees in addition to coffee, just as many mainland companies do. Zhang Zhende then set up a table in front of the store and posted a notice telling guests that there was no other charge for free coffee coupons. In the third month, the number of guests skyrocketed.

However, in order to keep his idea of "universal coffee" unchanged, Zhang Zhende has his own tough criteria for joining the chain: he does not accept those who have made coffee. "people who have made coffee have a stereotyped concept, which is difficult to teach and cannot do it my way." do not accept people who are very subjective, because they have too many ideas. Do not choose people who have worked in manufacturing to join, choose people who have worked in the service industry, because they have enthusiasm.

"We have a strict coffee system, from decoration, work flow to all kinds of figures, everything must be in accordance with our standards."

Like most successful Taiwanese businessmen, Zhang Zhende has a steady style of doing things. In Zhang Zhende's plan, the real pot will open 50 stores in the mainland by the end of the year, and when the number reaches 100, it will invest in a large baking plant and start listing, just like Starbucks did in 1992.

All this seems like a good idea. When the real pot has more than 5000 stores around the world like Starbucks, maybe Zhang Zhende's dream of "universal coffee" will come true. However, in China, it may be a long way off for farmers in remote mountainous areas to drink coffee like tea.