Lin Wending's Coffee Farm in Hainan
It was an afternoon when I met Lin Wending at his Gu Se coffee farm. On the table in his office, there was a coffee machine and some of his home-grown coffee beans. Lin was making coffee.
Today, Lin has a lot to say about coffee and how to grow it. It's hard to imagine that seven years ago, he was a county magistrate in Taiwan.
"I'm a straightforward person. It took me more than 20 years to realize that this personality was not appreciated in the political circle. So I had to quit."
Lin wanted to enter business. But as the investment conditions in Taiwan are overly competitive, he shifted his focus to the Chinese mainland. After careful research, he found that coffee sales had grown year by year on the Chinese mainland. Finally, he chose Hainan province as his base to grow coffee as the southernmost province shares the same climate as Taiwan.
In 2002, Lin rented 30 hectares of land and began growing coffee on it.
When talking about the days when he was trying to start up the business, Lin says the pressure was not only physical, but psychological too.
"There are definitely pains when you start in a new area. For more than 20 years, I was in the spotlight as a politician. But now, I had become a farmer who had to learn to lift a hoe. I mean, it's a big step. And you need to adjust your mindset greatly. I think perseverance was the key to my successful shift. No matter how glorious the past days were, they're over and I had to move on with my life."
Lin and the farmers he hired planted more than 30 coffee trees. He went out to the field every day, hoping for the day he would see his coffee beans begin to grow.
It usually takes three years to produce ripe coffee beans. But in 2005, when Lin was about to enjoy his first harvest, a typhoon hit Hainan island. His seedlings were all destroyed. Yet Lin wasted no time lamenting his loss. He planted new coffee seedlings and treated them with extra care. Unfortunately, a snow disaster hit Hainan in 2008, and again Lin's coffee harvest was seriously affected. But Lin refused to be beaten and continued his hard work.
Finally in 2009, Lin Wending reaped his first harvest after seven years of hard work.
The harvest was hard-earned. His success soon became known to other businessmen in Taiwan, and they began to ask to join Lin's Gu Se Coffee Farm.
Chen Yanshun is from the Taiwan Affairs Office of Hainan Province.
"Though it was painstaking when Lin first started the coffee farm, now his hard work is paying off. Coffee is a hot product in the market, and the booming coffee growing industry has attracted many of his friends here to grow coffee. That's how the coffee farm reached more than 130 hectares."
In retrospect, Lin Wending appreciates the support of the provincial and county government.
"They tried very hard to improve the transportation conditions. There was only a muddy road outside which lead to the highway, but last year, the county government invested and built this cement road outside. It helps a lot."
Today, Lin Wending has started his own coffee processing factory in Haikou, another city in Hainan province. He has established a distribution system around the Chinese mainland. He has registered two trademarks for his coffee. One is Gu Se, symbolizing the classic flavor of the coffee, and the other is Qiangna.
Lin explains:
"When I came to the local Administration for Industry and Commerce, I first wanted to register it as Zhongguo Coffee, or literally China coffee. But officers told me it isn't allowed to use a country's name as the trade mark. So I immediately changed it into Qiangna. The word sounds similar to China. Through this name, I want the world to know that China has its own quality coffee, and Chinese people can afford good coffee. This is my dream."
Now, Lin Wending's family has settled in Hainan province. His son has married a girl from Hainan, and the couple is expecting a baby. Lin says Hainan is already his second hometown.