After the Funtasy House Trick Art, we decided to walkabout the old town area, an interesting blue colour building came to our sight.
There is an old refurbished selling cart in front of the shop. We walked forward and there is a lady sitting in front and introduced us to the Ho Yan Hor Museum.
Ho Yan Hor Museum (HYHM) shares the stories of Ho Yan Hor, the most trusted household brand of Chinese herbal tea since 1941 originated from Ipoh.
It provides the discovery of the origins and evolution of Ho Yan Hor. It is also the gallery about the inspirational life of Dr. Ho Kai Cheong, the creator of the health-giving Ho Yan Hor tea.
In the year of 1941, Dr. Ho Kai Cheong invented a formulated flu remedy that has been a trusted brand of Chinese herbal tea in Ipoh.
The specially concoction of Chinese herbs and known as Ho Yan Hor was intended to benefit the locals by providing relief and natural healing.
Beyond a wellbeing legacy, Ho Yan Hor is genuinely a lineage of the neighborhood’s heartfelt and health advantages in the past 80 years.
Dr. Ho always offer his hands to the needy. As a Chinese physician, he had seen patients with common cold, running nose and feverish due to the body heat.
Ho Yan Hor was created as the solution to the health discomfort. During the era, Chinese immigrants from China came to Kinta Valley to work as tin mining coolies.
To work under the hot sun and rainy days got them to fall sick easily. They could not afford to be sick and skip working, they would drink Ho Yan Hor as prevention and treatment of the flu and cold.
Dr. Ho believed that hard work that can be endured will eventually produce success. He lived through war and poverty, also took the difficult phases in life and turn them into opportunities.
From a shop assistant, soldier, farmer and physician, Dr. Ho was seen as a highly versatile man who had gone through the ups and downs in life.
While the wife took care of the business at the shop, Dr. Ho would cycle from villages to towns and covered the Malay Peninsula to promote Ho Yan Hor.
Despite the sore blistered feet, he was able to get himself his very first vehicle, Morris Minor in 1948, and also a Fordson Light Van, the Ho Yan Hor Marketing Van in 1951.
The factory of Ho Yan Hor was built in 1954 at Kuala Kangsar Road. The herbal tea was getting known in Singapore and Thailand while the first overseas branch was setup in Hong Kong in the 1960s.
The brand got a spotlight in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand in the 1970s.
The history that matters is the journey of Ho Yan Hor. The original home of Dr. Ho Kai Cheong has turned into a museum in Ipoh.
Ho Yan Hor Museum is located in the old town of Ipoh and it stands the place where history happened.
The museum was set up in January 2016, in the loving memory of the greatest father by the children, as well as to honor the founder of Ho Yan Hor, Dr. Ho Kai Cheong; to share his valuable moments through hardships and glories along his entrepreneurship journey.
I still remember the taste of the original Ho Yan Hor when I was just a kid. It was really a bitter herbal drink but every time my mum will put in a sour plum into the hot herbal drink. And the herbal tea indeed made my not well feeling instantly gone after I covered my whole body with the blanket and took a nap. It indeed a good tea.
We did purchase some of the Ho Yan Hor products at the end of the tour as we came to the front desk where the staffs were serving different herbal teas for us to taste.
With the friendly front staff’s help, help us to take photo in front of the historical building.
