Primary Job Title Co-Founder Primary Organization Green Tea
Location Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China Regions Asia-Pacific (APAC) Gender Female
Yan Lu started her career as a dance teacher, but pursued her dream byswitchingto creative catering, co-founding Green Tea Restaurant Groupin 2008 with her husband Wang Qinsong.
The name “Green Tea Restaurant” originates from the couple’s first venture—the Green Youth International Youth Hostel. At first, Yan Lu just wanted to open a youth hostel,
but found that more people were lining up for a seat in the hostel’s Longjing Tea Garden than were lining up to stay in the hostel. By day, Yan Lu would pick vegetables and catch fish, and by night she would bartend for guests of the hostel. This marked her journey into an industry that was filled with equal parts of challenge and gratification.
After nine years of hard work, she now has tens of thousands of followers on her Chinese social media platform,Weibo, and has created four different brands under Green Tea Restaurant Group, which has locations in 20 cities and employs more than 6,000 workers.
Yan Luis not just an entrepreneur, but also a connoisseur of gourmet food. Her happiness stems from the sharing delicious foods she encounters to everyone, and seeing how fine food can bring bliss to friends who taste it. Ultimately, for her, the biggest driving force of her business is the ability to sharedelicious food to her customers.
