A flagship store demonstrates how heritage brands translate cultural values into physical retail experiences.
Mountain-shaped counters that reflect as clouds. Stainless steel surfaces that evoke ink brushstrokes. Hidden aromatherapy systems releasing tea-scented air without visible equipment. Li Xiang's Zhuyeqing Green Tea flagship store in Chengdu accomplishes something remarkably difficult: translating the misty mountain origins of premium tea into a physical retail environment measuring just 96 square meters. The Golden A' Design Award-winning project, completed in 2019, demonstrates how heritage brands can transform abstract cultural values into concrete spatial experiences customers walk through and remember. Every element serves the narrative of Sichuan's tea-growing highlands. Mirror principles turn solid counters into ethereal clouds. Journey architecture creates exploration rather than mere transaction. For enterprises seeking to understand how spatial design becomes a strategic brand asset, the X+Living team's approach offers valuable lessons in purposeful transformation.
The most counterintuitive choice reveals the project's design intelligence. Traditional Chinese ink painting uses black ink on white paper. Li Xiang chose polished stainless steel to achieve the same visual qualities: gradations from deep tones to translucent greys, textures appearing both solid and ethereal, light shifting with viewing angle. The material serves aesthetic intention rather than literal tradition. Similar intentionality appears throughout the space. All power cords, aromatherapy diffusers, and sound systems disappear into custom furniture, creating experiential simplicity through hidden complexity. When the organic counter forms required solutions beyond standard surface treatments, the production team commissioned painters to hand-apply finishes simulating wood grain. The accumulated craft decisions produce what the design team describes as traveling through clouds with the leisurely nature of a fairyland. Customers register the cumulative quality even without identifying specific techniques.
The Zhuyeqing flagship store earned recognition through the A' Design Award for achievement at the highest levels of interior and retail design practice. The project proves heritage brands competing where product differentiation proves increasingly difficult can find distinction through spatial experience. When abstract brand values become physical environments customers breathe, touch, and navigate, ordinary retail transactions transform into memorable encounters.
