Chapter 10: Expanding the Milk Tea Enterprise
With her milk tea business flourishing, Lin Yuer recognized an opportunity to elevate the experience by creating dedicated tea houses. She envisioned spaces where people could relax, socialize, and enjoy her signature milk tea in comfort. Drawing from her soap factory's model, she established her first tea house near a bustling market. The building was modest but welcoming, with cozy seating areas and soft lantern lighting. She invested in quality furnishings to ensure a warm, inviting atmosphere. Each table had clay cups and simple trays, thoughtfully arranged to serve guests in style.
To enhance the tea house experience, Lin Yuer expanded her milk tea menu. She added flavored variations like rose milk tea and almond-spiced milk tea, each created to appeal to different tastes and seasons. She even experimented with new ingredients, introducing a limited-edition tea blend with fragrant jasmine flowers, which quickly became popular among noble patrons. By rotating special flavors and promoting seasonal teas, she kept her menu fresh and exciting, drawing in customers eager to try the latest offerings.
Lin Yuer also introduced a selection of light snacks to pair with the tea. Her kitchen prepared traditional steamed buns, sweet rice cakes, and pastries made from locally sourced ingredients. To encourage local women to develop their skills, she hired them to bake and serve in the tea house, providing a steady income and valuable experience. As her staff expanded, Lin Yuer implemented a training program to maintain high service standards, ensuring that every customer was treated with respect and warmth.
Aware that managing multiple locations required efficient oversight, Lin Yuer established a management system. She assigned each tea house a trusted manager, often a woman she had trained personally. These managers kept track of daily sales, monitored inventory, and ensured that the tea house ran smoothly. Each month, Lin Yuer met with them to review their progress and discuss improvements. This system allowed her to scale her business without compromising quality.
As profits rose, Lin Yuer diversified her investments. She bought plots of land near each tea house to secure space for future expansion. She also forged partnerships with nearby tea farmers, creating a steady supply chain that guaranteed quality and sustainability. By investing in these relationships, she ensured that her tea houses had access to the freshest ingredients and created a reliable income stream for the farmers.
To keep her tea houses popular with nobles and wealthy patrons, Lin Yuer introduced a VIP section in each location, where guests could enjoy private seating and exclusive tea blends. For an additional fee, guests in the VIP section were served in fine porcelain cups and offered luxurious teas infused with rare ingredients like ginseng and saffron. This approach elevated her brand, making her tea houses not only accessible to common folk but also a fashionable choice among the elite.
The expansion of Lin Yuer's milk tea business proved immensely successful. Her tea houses became renowned throughout the region, attracting patrons from distant towns and creating a steady flow of income. The reputation of her brand grew, and her tea business, much like her soap empire, became synonymous with quality, comfort, and innovation. With each new tea house she opened, Lin Yuer's influence extended further, securing her status as a trailblazing entrepreneur in the ancient world.