关注社会:惬意茶文化

【英文原文】

Tea cozy

(Fortune Small Business) -- At Samovar Tea Lounge, a chain of three teahouses in San Francisco, you'll find no wireless Internet or bulletin board littered with local news and advertisements.

"The goal is to create relationships with customers where they become guests -- or friends," says CEO Jesse Jacobs, a dot-com veteran who opened the first Samovar, in the Castro/Mission district during the 2001 tech crash. "Our design reflects that. We try to provide a cocoon from the outside world, so we need more than just a few chairs and a Formica countertop."

Seating space at the teahouse's bamboo tables is intentionally tight. Jacobs, who built his shops without consulting professional designers, says the setup encourages patrons to mingle and try menu items that beckon from neighbors' plates.

"It's easy to overhear conversations, but that's good," says copywriter Paul Tootalian, 42, a regular customer. "There's a real community feel."

Jacobs, 38, wanted to re-create the physical closeness he experienced as a child when his family gathered around his great-grandmother's samovar, a traditional tea vessel that looms large in Eastern European social life. Jacobs hosts Friday tea tastings at his Yerba Buena and Hayes Valley locations. In Hayes Valley they're held at the bar, a 20-foot-long slice of wind-fallen redwood installed by woodworker and friend Michael Deakin. The craftsman gave Jacobs a 40% discount in exchange for $1,000 worth of Samovar gift cards, which he distributed to his VIP customers -- generating marketing for both businesses. And the inexpensive repurposed wood fits with Samovar's aesthetic, which is based on wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept that finds beauty in simplicity, age and imperfection.

Resisting chain-store uniformity, Jacobs tries to match each Samovar to its neighborhood. When city officials asked him to help revitalize a dreary business district by setting up shop in Yerba Buena Gardens, he turned a failed Starbucks into a clean, modern space for business lunches, eliminating the candles, flowers and menu cards that typically clutter caf tables.

The independent design route spared Samovar from a cookie-cutter look, Jacobs says. And bartering with friends like Deakin helped him shave hundreds of thousands of dollars off construction costs, which totaled $1.2 million.

Revenues have doubled every year since Samovar launched and are expected to hit $3 million in 2009, all with no paid advertising. Jacobs estimates that word of mouth accounts for 95% of sales. When a restaurant conglomerate approached him recently to discuss franchising the Samovar concept, Jacobs passed.

"We don't think like a franchise," he says.

【中文译文】

(Fortune Small Business) -- 沙莫瓦茶吧（Samovar Tea Lounge）是旧金山一家有着三间茶馆的连锁店，在那你找不到无线网络，也找不到涂满本地新闻和广告的宣传板。

该企业CEO杰西•雅各布斯(Jesse Jacobs)曾在互联网产业摸爬滚打多年，2001年互联网泡沫破灭时，他在旧金山卡斯特罗区和米慎区交界处开了第一家沙莫瓦茶吧（沙莫瓦：俄式茶饮——译者注）。他说：“我们的目标就是与顾客建立起良好的关系，把他们当做我们的客人或朋友。我们的茶楼设计也体现了这一点。我们试图提供一个与外部世界隔离的私密空间，所以我们需要的不仅是几把椅子或福米加桌面。”

雅各布斯的店铺全由他自己一人打造，没有咨询任何专业设计师。他说：“茶楼里竹桌周围的座位故意设计得很紧凑，这种安排可以鼓励客人们相互混熟，并尝试着点邻桌餐盘里的食物。”

今年42岁的撰稿人保罗•图塔利安（Paul Tootalian）是沙莫瓦的常客，他说：“这儿座位很紧凑，很容易偷听到别人的谈话，但这很不错，有一种真正的社群感。”

雅各布斯今年38岁，他想重拾小时候一家人围坐在祖母的俄式茶壶周围时那种肢体的亲近感。俄式茶壶是一种传统茶器，在东欧人的社交生活中占有非常重要的地位。每周五，雅各布斯都会在位于耶尔巴布埃纳和海耶斯谷的茶楼举办品茶会。在海耶斯谷店，品茶会在一个吧台边举行，该吧台由一条20英尺长被风刮倒的红杉木制成，是雅各布斯的好友——木匠迈克尔•迪肯（Michael Deakin）安装的。迪肯给了雅各布斯40%的优惠，作为回报，雅各布斯给了迪肯价值1000美元的茶吧礼券，迪肯将它们分派给自己的VIP客户，如此一来便同时宣传了两人的生意。而且，这根便宜的改装吧台木条非常切合沙莫瓦的审美风格，沙莫瓦的审美风格基于“侘寂”——一种日本设计理念，以简约、成熟和非理想性为美。

雅各布斯拒绝连锁店整齐划一的模式，他试图让每家沙莫瓦茶楼的风格都与周围的环境协调统一。当市政府官员让他在耶尔巴布埃纳公园开设一家店铺，以帮忙重整该地区萧条的商业时，雅各布斯将一家已倒闭的星巴克咖啡屋改造成了一个整洁而具现代化的商务午餐场所，摒弃了一般咖啡屋餐桌上常见的烛台、鲜花和菜单卡。

雅各布斯说，独立的设计风格使得沙莫瓦茶吧的外观跳出了千篇一律的俗套。而且，通过与像迪肯这样的朋友的物物交易，雅各布斯也省去了几十万建设费用，总建设成本共120万美元。

自创立以来，沙莫瓦的收入每年都会翻一番，到2009年预计会达到300万美元，而且没有花任何广告费用。雅各布斯估计，口碑对总销售额的贡献率高达95%。最近，一家餐饮业巨头找到他，想跟他商讨出售沙莫瓦特许经营权的事宜，雅各布斯回绝了。

他说：“我们并不想做成一家特许经营店。”