Taiwan tea retailer founded as a Tainan shop by Li Rui-ho; the present company was established in 1975 and began trading on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1999.
The 1961 first-shop date and the company’s 1975 establishment date describe different events. The 2012 newspaper profile places the father’s Gangshan shop in the 1950s but does not supply the precise year 1953 or the name Mingfeng. Those details and the proposed 1968 intermediate company remain unverified.
Li Rui-ho (李瑞河) worked in his father’s Gangshan tea shop in the 1950s before opening his own Ten Ren shop in Tainan in 1961, according to a 2012 Liberty Times profile. That report also describes the family’s securities-business losses after the June 1990 market crash and Li’s subsequent move into tea retailing in Fujian. Ten Ren and Tenfu are separate companies associated with the same founder. Ten Ren’s 2019 annual report dates the present company to 11 December 1975, its OTC listing to 18 March 1997 and its first Taiwan Stock Exchange trading day to 20 January 1999. The report records Chafortea’s launch in 2000, a Coca-Cola brand-licensing agreement in 2003 and the opening of its tea-culture park and museum in 2006. Financial statements for 2023 specify March 2000 for the start of Chafortea and give the company’s registered and principal operating address in Taipei.
