From China: The Future of the Wok

Some automatic woks, like this one, are built to look and move like a traditional wok. [Image: Serious Eats / Graeme Kennedy].

A freight elevator carried me to their third-floor warehouse, the doors slowly opening on a scene that would, I imagine, make the Cen brothers, Mr. Tao, and many Chinese chefs very uncomfortable. Rows of drum woks mounted on metal tables lined the floor; in the back, a drum wok the size and shape of a jet engine, capable of stir-frying 100 kilograms of food at a time, pointed down the aisle, as if ready for takeoff.

While his goal seems to be to command the consumer market, for now, it seems, his business is focused on the commercial kitchen, where rising labor costs are driving restaurants to look for ways to economize, and skilled chefs are in the crosshairs. A Shanyi manager told me that in Guangdong, an average chef earns about 7,000 CNY per month, or about 84,000 CNY per year, a decent salary. Shanyi’s standard model robo-woks are 8,400 CNY each .

The customers picked at the ho fun and whispered to themselves. I gathered they're going to open a chain of fast-food outlets and were looking for ways to keep their costs and prices low. But they couldn't decide if they were satisfied with the results, and whether the problem had been with the drum wok or the ingredients. Is there a restaurant or supermarket nearby, they asked?

Unlike the Cen brothers in Shanghai, Wang Lifang got a break in the early 2010s. A Zhangqiu restaurant manager named Feng Quanyong stumbled upon his woks and started selling them on Taobao, China's massive online marketplace. Sales didn't really take off until a few years later, when Liu Zimu, who similarly appreciated the craftsmanship evident in the woks, used his experience in e-commerce to start Zhen San Huan—the "Premium Three Rings"—in earnest.

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