By writing private biographies, Susanne Popp came to writing novels. In 2020, Rowohlt published “Madame Clicquot and the luck of Champagne”, followed this summer by Fischer-Verlag “The Tea Trader”. She also pursues her passion for the biographies of extraordinary women in the podcast "Frauenleben". On Saturday, from 8 p.m. onwards, she will perform at Open Books' “Frankfurt Evening” in the Volksbühne. trust. The company As the second son of a carpenter's family, Johann Tobias Ronnefeldt, unlike his ancestors, is not drawn to trade, but to trade. After his first few years in a large Rotterdam grocery store, he set up shop in his native Frankfurt in 1823 as an independent importer "in all types of tea, East Indian manufactured goods,Cigars and other East and West Indian products ”. A few years later, he and his wife Friederike bought the house on the Neue Kräme, which remained the seat of the family business for six decades. The business is carried on by the children and grandchildren, the company specializes in the tea trade, moves to the Zeil, Roßmarkt, Goethestrasse and, after the Second World War, to Kurfürstenplatz in Bockenheim. Since 2009 there has also been a shop on the Zeil again. Today the company has around 160 employees at its headquarters in Frankfurt and in the production facility in Worpswede.The company specializes in the tea trade, moves to the Zeil, Roßmarkt, Goethestrasse and, after the Second World War, to Kurfürstenplatz in Bockenheim. Since 2009 there has also been a shop on the Zeil again. Today the company has around 160 employees at its headquarters in Frankfurt and in the production facility in Worpswede.The company specializes in the tea trade, moves to the Zeil, Roßmarkt, Goethestrasse and, after the Second World War, to Kurfürstenplatz in Bockenheim. Since 2009 there has also been a shop on the Zeil again. Today the company has around 160 employees at its headquarters in Frankfurt and in the production facility in Worpswede.

Matthias Trautsch

Coordination of the Rhine-Main report.

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Fr

au Popp, you start your novel in Frankfurt in 1838.

Why this time and why this city?

Frankfurt is a trading metropolis with a great history, a city on the river.

Such cities always have a special atmosphere.

I studied in Mainz and we often drove to Frankfurt from there.

In Frankfurt I also went to the bookselling school.

So I know the city very well, even if I live in Zurich now.

The Swiss are a bit closed, so in retrospect I appreciate it all the more when people are a little more open and direct.

And Frankfurt played a major role in the pre-March period and then, of course, during the Paulskirche meeting.

How does tea come into play?

The tea stands for the wide world, for the love of discovery of the people of that time.

China was terra incognita, hardly a European came there.

The Chinese have also tried to keep out anything foreign.

They didn't need anything because they had everything, and that on a very high level, whether in porcelain production or in painting or over tea.

But you haven't written a non-fiction book about Frankfurt or China ...

No, it's mostly a family story.

I am fascinated by immersing myself in biographies.

So it is a good thing that Frankfurt has a family of tea merchants to offer.

How did you come across the Ronnefeldts?

I owe the suggestion to my agent Dorothee Schmidt.

She had read a newspaper article about the Ronnefeldt company and began to prick up the subject of tea.

While doing some research, she discovered that there is also an interesting female figure in the company's history.

Exciting women are important to the novels I write.

Because the readers identify with them?

Yes.

Friederike Ronnefeldt is a strong woman who continues the company after the death of her husband Tobias.

Until their sons are old enough to get on board.

The Ronnefeldts were not aristocrats or super-rich, they had five children and struggled a bit, they had a business and have proven themselves in it.

Today, 200 years after it was founded, the company still bears the name of the family.

The parent company was on Neue Kräme - at the height of today's Paulsplatz.

At the time the novel is set, the stock exchange was being built across the street, and the telegraph office was on the first floor.

The building no longer exists - today's old stock exchange is actually the new stock exchange.

During the research I also read original letters from the family.

A grandson of Friederike and Tobias writes how as children they always looked into the telegraph office and wondered what people were doing there.

I find something like that exciting.

If I could wish for something, I would like to travel back in time.