Before founding Rizhao Shenggushan Tea Farm, Gao Jianhua had worked at the Bureau of Radio and Television of Yiyuan County for almost six years. It's a good job but he knew it was not the life what he wanted. Unwilling to be the ordinary, Gao quit his job and started his own business.

At first he founded an advertising agency and a technology company, but all ended in failure. It was a hard time for him, but he never gave up his ideal to be an entrepreneur. Soon he bounced back to try again. Then as you guessed, Shenggushan Tea Farm was born.

To protect the company from the fierce market competition, Gao first located the company's headquarters in Zibo and then moved it to Rizhao.

"But I found I was wrong. As the leader of a company, you can never be afraid of the competition, because the fierce competition can bring a lot of opportunities," said Gao. Then he moved the company's headquarters to Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province.

It was not so easy for Shenggushan to gain its footing because Rizhao green tea was not well known in the tea industry at that time. Making a new brand bigger and stronger requires the huge courage as well as enough sights and wisdom. Not like other tea enterprises that put the production first, Shenggushan started with the market circulation. Gao said good products may not mean good markets, but good markets definitely will create good products.

Gao said the vitality of a brand doesn't originate from the company but is rooted in customers' heart. You should know it is your customers who taste your tea and describe it with their mouths.

Note that though Shenggushan open the market with green tea, the company always strictly controls the quality of the tea leaves. With the help of the Tea Department of Shandong Agricultural University, Shenggushan successfully developed Rizhao red tea and won the first industrial production license of the province in 2009. From then on, Rizhao is no longer a city produce green tea only.

"I do not want to only make Shandong tea famous but also promote Chinese tea to the world," said Gao, "I know this may need efforts made by several generations, but I have confidence and patience."