Our Story
Uncompromised Quality
since 1942
Mr. Ng Kam Kee founded the company in 1942 together with his wife, Madam Tse Yuk Kui.
In the like of many in those times, Kam Kee came to Hong Kong from mainland with next to nothing other than the shirt on his back, no education or money, yet with the immense vigor and invaluable inquisitive character of a young man. He started work as an apprentice without pay at Chan Chun Lan (陳春蘭茶行), the leading tea shop at the time, belonging to a distant relative from the same village.
As time went by, he learned about the trade, reading and writing in Chinese and English through night schools, and managed to secure a job as a Postman with the then British Government. Whilst on the daily run he met his future wife, a woman from very respectable family of scholars and lawyers who, due to outbreak of war in China, moved to Hong Kong for safety. Knowing next to nobody and as a teenager, Madam Tse for the sake of supporting herself and her mother worked as a seamstress initially and later a street vendor selling cigarettes.
After getting married, they embarked on their first business venture setting a small business selling tea and cigarettes on consignment basis. As time went by, the business grew and so was Kam Kee’s family. Ki Chan Tea Co. has evolved into one of the most famous teashops in Hong Kong and on his family’s side, a nest of eight children.
A lot has changed in the past 75 years, but what keeps Ki Chan going strong is our willingness to change with times, and our relentless passion for the Chinese tea culture. The humble success in Ki Chan not only comes from its product alone, but its insistence of core values of sincerity, honesty, and hard work.
