Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Part I the Store, July 25th, Sunday afternoon in Dongguan.

Last week I visited Li Hong at her new place of business.  Still located in the Dong Cheng area of Dongguan city.  Near the intersection of: XueYuan Road and Dong Cheng Zhong Road.   As ref: the Pink #2 is the location of Mrs. Yang's store.Capturedongchen

Map source:  heredg.com.


As a collection of 40+ “sections/shops” under one roof,  a unique set-up for this area.  The consortium of 7 owners are rightly proud of this immaculate set of shops. The staff are enthusiastic, and are here to learn about the tea trade as a business. 
I plan on 4 separate postings to cover this visit.  In all we spent about 1 1/2 hrs here, after spending 2+ hrs at Mr’s Yangs “Getting drunk on tea” to quote Palao. Part 1 The Sore, Part B  Pu-Erh detail, Part III:  The Tables, Part 4: The staff and Tea Pots
At the entrance, you are greeted by a host, who will escort and help you navigate through sensory input overload.  I would need to shop here for about a month to imprint what is on offer and get to know the place.  Fortunately Li Hong  has known Palao and myself for about 6 years, so in that regard we have a friend to help us.
Ground / Street level entrance .. Pu-Erh by the: pallet (栈板 zhàn​bǎn)​ load.st10

On the lower level we see pallet sized storage, all Pu-erhst1

Paolo eyes some new cakes of Pu-Erh:…………………st2

On to the upper level, we see a mixture of: Tea and Accessories. st6

Everywhere is clean and free of clutter .. amazingly very “Un-Chinese” st7

Every thing in these stores has a marked price .. clearly defined in Chinese with sell prices in both Chinese and “Western” numbers.  Prices are, in my experience very fair.   A small amount of bargaining is possible depending on the size of purchase made.st4 st9

One of the girls is writing up a recent sale .. you take your sales receipt to a central pay station.st8

One of the large “Plank” tables, the girls give a sense of scale.  s1

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