Legacy Taiwanese soap store navigates business post-pandemic
YILAN, Taiwan — Soap maker Mei Sheng Tang (Tea Shop) was not spared the brunt of the pandemic’s economic impact. The legacy soap brand — it has been around for six decades — has adapted as it witnessed the evolving landscape of Taiwan’s soap industry, guided by the teachings of its beloved founder.
“Our business is pretty good, but it was affected by the pandemic. We originally had about 10 stores but now there are only three left. [Products] can also be purchased online,” Yu Hui Ling, store manager of Tea Shop told BusinessWorld in an interview in its Yilan store. The business has started to recover and is now at 80% of pre-pandemic sales, including sales from the online store, she said.
However, this is not new as the business had struggled in the past, forcing the factory to close at one point, before it was revitalized by the founder’s grandson.
The Mei Sheng Tang soap factory was co-founded by the late Lin Yicai in 1957, who used his experience selling soap at Taipei’s train station when he went into the production side of the soap business. His own skin problem motivated him to spend seven years in research and development to create an all-natural soap.
Lin Yicai’s grandson, Lin Youan, took over the ailing business and brought it back by combining Three Gorges Biluochun green tea with his grandfather’s pioneering “medicated soap” products. New consumers were then attracted by the all-natural, environment-friendly, healthy tea soaps.
Today, the store’s catalog of soaps can cater to oily, dry, combination, and sensitive skin. Among the different tea soaps sold are black tea, mugwort, lemongrass, fresh citrus, magnolia, jasmine, a pure green tea soap, tea tree, and five-leaf pine soaps, among more.
The best seller is the Royal soap, a moisturizing variant that utilizes a combination of flowers including roses.
Their soaps do not use chemical soap bases or contain alcohol and chemical solvents such as nonylphenol, commonly used for laundry and dish detergent, which are a threat to wildlife.
FACTORY TOURISM
Another source of revenue is tourism, as their branches in the National Center for Traditional Arts in Yilan and the factory in Sanxia District, New Taipei City, open their doors to local and foreign tourists.
A tour lasts about one and a half hours and offers a history lesson on the Mei Sheng Tang enterprise, the history of the soap industry, and a visit to the production line and cultural relics display.
The visit includes activities like molding animal shaped soaps and a game which involves playing with soap strings — which is also done in the brand’s stall in Yilan Park. Children can cut out and make their own soap then use it to wash their hands at home.
“We use the most primitive soap that my ‘grandfather’ made, which is made of oil, water, and alkali,” Ms. Yu said, adding that the activity alone costs 150 Taiwanese dollars.
A FEW NOTES FROM GRANDPA
Ms. Yu, who started working for the store in 2008, rose through the ranks and was entrusted to manage the Yilan store by the elder Mr. Lin despite not being a blood relation. “He let me run the Yilan store and never put pressure on me. He trusted us very much, so we became a family,” she said, praising the founder who passed away a couple of years ago.
She said, the elder Lin was “kind to people” and treated her just like his own biological granddaughter. “I was originally an employee. I have been doing this for 16 years and, and very familiar with the products, and then I become a store manager,” she said.
One thing that she learned from Mr. Lin is “about making soap very seriously” and being an advocate of taking care of the environment with its sought-after soaps.
“With a century of soap-making technology, each piece of soap is a sincere work of the craftsmen, with 10 exclusive soap-making methods and the only floating soap in Taiwan,” the company said, preserving the 10-step soap-making process inherited from the founder.
10 STEPS
The first step requires mixing coconut oil, olive oil, water, and soda ash and boiling the mixture for two days. Workers must sprinkle water at the right time to cool down the mixture.
Then the excess soap alkali must be extracted to reduce the alkali content of the soap, making the soap produced less irritating to the skin.
To add the natural ingredients, the soap is ground into powder and mixed with water, a step which they said requires great care so that the finished product would be smooth and soft. The soap solution is then poured into large boxes. It takes two days for the soap in the boxes to cool off and solidify, said Ms. Yu.
“After cooling, it needs to be cut into large pieces, about 60 to 70 kilograms of soap which can be sliced and cut into [smaller] pieces,” she said.
Next, the cut soap is meticulously arranged on a rack and carefully spaced to facilitate the drying process.
The tenth and final step in the production cycle involves transferring the soap to the drying room for a day to reduce its water content. The dried soap is then ready for packaging.
Mr. Lin’s timeless soap-making method has become a cherished tradition, not only among his family — whether by blood or by bond — but also among consumers worldwide who value craftsmanship. — Aubrey Rose A. Inosante