--- title: "The Brand Truth of Wanglaoji According to Wikipedia" description: "This article traces the history of Wanglaoji herbal tea from its legendary founding by Wang Zebang in the Qing Dynasty, through its division into Hong Kong and mainland branches, to the modern trademark disputes between JDB and Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group. It highlights the brand's evolution, the impact of political changes in China, and the legal battles over packaging rights." author: "New Distribution" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2014-12-24" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-brand-truth-of-wanglaoji-according-to-wikipedia-0db47c72/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-brand-truth-of-wanglaoji-according-to-wikipedia-0db47c72.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/n5Ewg10pA6K7SmRG4YUUig" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%BA%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E4%B8%8B-%E7%8E%8B%E8%80%81%E5%90%89-%E7%9A%84%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C%E7%9C%9F%E7%9B%B8-0db47c72.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-brand-truth-of-wanglaoji-according-to-wikipedia-0db47c72/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # The Brand Truth of Wanglaoji According to Wikipedia > This article traces the history of Wanglaoji herbal tea from its legendary founding by Wang Zebang in the Qing Dynasty, through its division into Hong Kong and mainland branches, to the modern trademark disputes between JDB and Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group. It highlights the brand's evolution, the impact of political changes in China, and the legal battles over packaging rights. **Reminder: Click the blue text above “FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting” to learn more about marketing and distributor internal management.** **The Founding of Wanglaoji** Legend has it that Wang Zebang was originally a farmer. When a plague broke out in his area, he took his wife and children to the mountains to avoid the epidemic. On the way, he met a Taoist priest who taught him a medicinal recipe. Wang Zebang brewed tea according to the recipe and helped cure the sick. In the second year of Xianfeng's reign (1852), the emperor, having heard of the remarkable efficacy of "Wanglaoji Herbal Tea" in preventing and treating diseases, summoned Wang Zebang to the palace to prepare herbal tea for the civil and military officials as a refreshing beverage, which was widely praised. Six months later, Wang was granted the title of Imperial Physician (Taiyi Ling) and given five hundred taels of silver. Accompanied by the chief steward of the Imperial Household Department, he returned to his hometown in glory, causing a sensation in Yangcheng (Guangzhou). The following year, he opened the "Wanglaoji Herbal Tea Shop" on Jingyuan Street, Shisanhang Road (now Jingyuan Road) in Guangzhou, specializing in bowl-served herbal tea. The name "Wanglaoji" came from Wang Zebang's childhood nickname, Aji. During the Daoguang period (around 1830), Wang Zebang was already selling Wanglaoji herbal tea in Guangzhou. [1] In the 1840s, he began producing Wanglaoji herbal tea packets, operating in a front-shop-back-workshop model, supplying both bowl-served tea and tea packets. Later, he had his three sons open branch shops in Guangzhou. Subsequently, Wanglaoji herbal tea became popular not only in Guangdong and Guangxi but also in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Shanghai, and even Beijing. As many Cantonese people migrated to Southeast Asia and other regions, Wanglaoji herbal tea spread to Southeast Asian countries and even the United States. Wang Zebang passed away in 1883 at the age of 70, leaving the herbal tea business to his sons Wang Guicheng, Wang Guixiang, and Wang Guifa. He was buried in the Dajinzhong area of Baiyun Mountain. **The Division of Wanglaoji** In 1908, Wang Guifa died in Hong Kong. After the founding of the Republic of China, on December 24, 1912, Wang Henghui and his brothers, under the auspices of their mother Nianci (Wang Guifa's wife), signed a property division agreement, stipulating that each branch "must not encroach upon the other's territory." In 1897, Wang Hengyu's branch set up a shop on Wenwu Temple Straight Street (now Hollywood Road) in Hong Kong, separating from the Guangzhou Wanglaoji. [2] They registered the trademark of the "Hangxian Gourd" (a gourd with horizontal lines) for Wanglaoji, becoming the first registered Chinese merchant trademark. In 1915, the shop was moved to Aberdeen Street in Central. In 1925, Hong Kong Wanglaoji was invited to London, England, to participate in the Chinese Products Exhibition, displaying herbal tea packets. On the opening day, the British King, princesses, and many dignitaries visited, boosting Wanglaoji's export business. In 1934, Wang Hengyu died, and his only son, Wang Yukang, who was 16, inherited the business. In 1951, Wang Yukang opened a branch in Macau (the shop previously operated by Guixiang had already closed). Later, he met a man surnamed Ding who speculated in futures. Wang Yukang initially gave Ding 50,000 yuan, and within a day, Ding earned 30,000 yuan. Fascinated by this way of making money, Wang Yukang became addicted to futures speculation. He trusted Ding completely and gave him full authority over the company's finances and property. At first, everything went smoothly, until Ding absconded with a shipment of goods worth about one million yuan. Only then did Wang Yukang wake up. He had to pawn the Hong Kong Wanglaoji shop and even sell the trademark to repay debts. In 1984, Wang Yukang died, and after three years of inheritance procedures, the assets were passed to the fifth-generation overseas heirs, Wang Jianquan and Wang Jianyi in 1988. However, the siblings' management was still poor. Although the Wanglaoji brand was widely known in Southeast Asia, there were many counterfeiters, and fake goods were rampant in the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands. As the legal trademark holders and authentic recipe heirs, the Wang siblings did not profit much from sales, and their scale remained very limited. To address this, they registered Hong Kong Wanglaoji (International) Co., Ltd. in over 30 countries and regions to rectify the overseas market: they took back overseas agency rights and had the company deal directly with customers. In 1990, Chen Hongdao, a businessman from Dongguan, Guangdong, went to Hong Kong to negotiate the use of the Wanglaoji secret recipe and trademark. He had to navigate through alleys to find the "century-old ancestral shop" of Wanglaoji in an inconspicuous lane. In 1995, Chen Hongdao obtained the right to use the "Wanglaoji" trademark and secret recipe in Hong Kong, producing and selling canned Wanglaoji in Hong Kong under the name of Hongdao Group. **The Mainland Branch Story (This is the most important):** The Henghui branch stayed in Guangzhou on Jingyuan Road, maintaining the century-old shop, focusing on "water bowl" herbal tea. However, from the late 19th century, as China's political situation became chaotic, Wanglaoji's business on the mainland began to decline. In 1911, the gourd sign was registered with the Republic of China government; after 1928, it was registered with the image of Wang Zebang and the gourd pattern. In 1925, the May 30th Movement, the Canton-Hong Kong Strike, and the Shaji Massacre dealt a heavy blow to Guangzhou Wanglaoji's business, cutting off export markets and even local business. The descendants of Guifa who stayed in Guangzhou moved their families to the countryside for refuge, and the provincial shop was forced to close. Meanwhile, Hong Kong Wanglaoji's business was thriving. In 1938, Guangzhou was occupied by the Japanese during the War of Resistance. All Wanglaoji herbal tea warehouses were burned down. After the war, Wang Henghui's one daughter and five sons returned to their homeland to discuss rebuilding. Among them, the eldest sister Wang Baodian and her husband Hu Duowen contributed 70% of the capital, while the five brothers, including Wang Baozhang and Wang Baoyao, jointly contributed 30%. They resumed production on Jingyuan Road, then moved to 71-73 Haizhu Middle Road, and expanded with two branch shops: Wanji Wanglaoji on Zhonghua Road (now Jiefang Road) and Yongji Wanglaoji on Hongde Road. ##### **Confiscation by the Authorities** After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the private assets of Wanglaoji herbal tea on the mainland (including shops and factories) were confiscated by the authorities and incorporated into "state-owned enterprises." In 1956, the authorities carried out a "socialist transformation of the means of production" for private enterprises, merging eight long-established Chinese medicine factories into a "public-private partnership." These were: He Tianfu, Cunrentang, Jiabaozhan, and Kangshoutang (producing Shenqu tea); Chen Ranshi (producing Waigan Ping'an tea and Ping'an powder); Lu Xuechang (producing Wushi tea); and Chang Jiongtang (producing Kuaiying tea). The merged factory was named after Wanglaoji, which had the largest fixed assets and number of employees (annual output value of 443,600 yuan, 41 employees), and was called "Wanglaoji United Pharmaceutical Factory," located at 10 Guyijie, Shisanhang Road. After the public-private partnership, the factory paid a fixed interest of 5% annually to private shareholders like the Wang family as dividends. However, this fixed interest was "one-size-fits-all," regardless of the factory's profitability or the shareholders' wishes. In fact, given the circumstances, this fixed interest was not only far lower than the factory's profits but also lower than the bank's fixed deposit interest rates at the time. Wang Peicheng recalled that from childhood to adolescence, his grandmother and mother would take him to paste "Wanglaoji" herbal tea packaging bags with glue. At that time, their family lived in a cramped space on Qingping Road, and the cold alley (i.e., the corridor) served as their processing workshop. Life was very hard. However, Wang Baozhang and Wang Baoyao never gave up on training their sons to inherit the herbal tea business. Wang Peicheng remembered often going with his father to rural areas to purchase medicinal herbs. Wang Yongcheng recalled how Wang Baozhang taught him to identify herbs. However, none of them were able to continue studying traditional Chinese medicine. Wang Peicheng said: "At that time, wanting to inherit the ancestral business was simply wishful thinking." In October 1965, the Guangzhou pharmaceutical industry was restructured, with Chinese and Western medicine factories separated under different bureau-level management, and the "Guangzhou Chinese Medicine General Factory" was established. At the same time, to implement the authorities' "Four Olds" campaign during the early Cultural Revolution, subordinate enterprises were renamed with numbers. The name "Wanglaoji" was considered to "erect a monument" to capitalists, and "Wanglaoji is also a stinking old ninth" (a derogatory term for intellectuals). Thus, in 1966, it was renamed "Guangzhou No. 9 Chinese Medicine Factory," and "Wanglaoji Herbal Tea" was changed to "Guangdong Herbal Tea." (Newspaper advertisements from Guangzhou during the public-private partnership period; the brands shown, merged from eight Chinese medicine factories, were all abolished after 1966, and the Wang descendants were driven away; the true portrait of Wang Zebang could only be seen on products in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and overseas.) In 1966, the Cultural Revolution began. Wang Baozhang and Wang Baoyao, who had served as acting manager and chief accountant, were both labeled "capitalists" and imprisoned, soon classified as "objects of dictatorship." In September of the same year, the fixed interest payments stopped. The fixed interest had been paid for a total of ten years, equivalent to 50% of the total private shares. Without any legal procedures, the private shares were "confiscated" as "state-owned," and all public-private partnership enterprises became wholly state-owned. [5] However, the descendants did not leave the factory. After the factory was confiscated, all Wang family members of working age entered the factory as workers to make a living. Later, the younger Wangs were arranged for "reform." Wang Baozhang's eldest son, Wang Yongcheng, went to a farm in 1966 and was only recruited back to work in 1980; his younger son, Wang Yongming, voluntarily wrote a blood letter to go to work at the Zhubijiang Farm on Hainan Island. He had opportunities for university enrollment, technical secondary school enrollment, and recruitment back to the city, but all were thwarted due to "class background issues." In 1967, "Guangdong Herbal Tea" was transferred to the Beijiao Bijiang Chinese Medicine Processing Factory in Shunde for continued production. In 1971, the No. 9 Chinese Medicine Factory reformed its dosage forms, concentrating the original 90-gram paper bag tea packets into 2-gram "herbal tea essence" that could be brewed instantly with boiling water. When exported, it was well received in Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas Chinese markets. In 1979, the 1302 Factory, which specialized in producing Baoyi Pills, was merged into the Wanglaoji United Pharmaceutical Factory. In January 1982, with the approval of the Guangzhou Economic Commission, the No. 9 Chinese Medicine Factory was renamed "Guangzhou Yangcheng Pharmaceutical Factory." In August 1987, Yangcheng Pharmaceutical Factory made the herbal tea into a granular instant drink, named "Wanglaoji Brand Instant Herbal Tea," for easy carrying and consumption. **In February 1983, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued a document stipulating that public-private partnership assets were already state-owned and should not be returned to individuals. In today's terms, it was as if shareholders' stocks and homeowners' properties were nationalized overnight. This unconstitutional policy formed the entire basis for Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group's ownership of the Wanglaoji pharmaceutical factory's physical assets.** The "Wanglaoji" trademark and even the "Wanglaoji" herbal tea brand disappeared from the market from 1968 to 1992. **Wanglaoji Packaging Rights** In 1990, Wang Jianyi, the Hong Kong Wanglaoji heir, reached a cooperation agreement with Chen Hongdao, chairman of Hong Kong's Hongdao Group. Wanglaoji (International) Co., Ltd. authorized Hongdao Group to use the Wanglaoji herbal tea secret recipe and trademark to produce beverages. In 1992, Chen Hongdao began setting up a factory in Dongguan, Guangdong, to produce Wanglaoji and sell it on the mainland. However, since the predecessor of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, Yangcheng Pharmaceutical Factory, had already registered the Wanglaoji trademark for pharmaceutical products in 1983, when the mainland trademark law was formally implemented, Chen Hongdao's herbal tea could only be named "Qingliang Tea" (cooling tea). In 1994, Chen Hongdao approached Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group to request permission to use the Wanglaoji trademark. In March of the following year, the two parties signed the first trademark licensing contract. The Hong Kong and mainland branches of "Wanglaoji" established their first connection in over 80 years through Hongdao Group, and the three parties reached an agreement to "divide" the market: Guangzhou Yangcheng Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.'s Wanglaoji Food and Beverage Branch formally signed a trademark licensing contract with Hong Kong Hongdao Group Co., Ltd., approving Hongdao Group's subsidiary JDB to use the "Wanglaoji" trademark on the mainland to produce and sell red paper-packaged and red easy-open can herbal tea beverages, with the recipe provided by Wang Jianyi, a descendant of Hong Kong Wanglaoji. According to the contract, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group licensed Hongdao Group to use the Wanglaoji trademark from that date until January 2003, and both parties were prohibited from using any packaging or decoration of the other's products. Hongdao Group paid Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group 600,000 yuan in trademark usage fees for the first year, increasing by 20% annually thereafter. Due to the trademark relationship, products of Hong Kong Wanglaoji (International) Co., Ltd., held by Hong Kong Wanglaoji descendants, could not be sold on the mainland. At that time, Yangcheng Pharmaceutical had never produced red-canned Wanglaoji. Guangzhou Pharmaceutical later produced green Tetra Pak packaged Wanglaoji to differentiate. **This shows that the red can packaging rights were entirely designed and invented by JDB, with no relation to Guangzhou Pharmaceutical.** **However, today, December 19, 2014, JDB lost another lawsuit, and even its own design was taken over by Guangzhou Pharmaceutical. The recent widely discussed "Hugejiletu" case was a major step forward in Chinese law, but today it seems everything has returned to the past. Moreover, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group knew the first-instance court result three days before the verdict was announced.** **President Xi said, "Let every citizen feel fairness and justice in every case." This is only the first instance; JDB will defend its rights and interests.** **Finally, let me say: "Justice may be delayed, but it will never be absent."** **Source: Nalan Zuitian** -------------------------------------------- --- ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL. Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671