Boiling seventy jin of crabapples into syrup was a huge task. Qiao Suiman and Miao Lianhua worked tirelessly until mealtime, with nearly twenty jin still left to boil. They had already used up a significant portion of the firewood brought from home. During the process of mashing the fruit pulp, Qin Yu took the opportunity to cook some vegetable porridge in the clay stove. The three of them finally had a chance to rest during lunch.
“Yu-ge’r, I’ll take care of the rest. You go back to your room and get some sleep,” Miao Lianhua said as she took a sip of her porridge.
“No need, this little bit of work is nothing. How about I peel the fruit while you mash it?” Qin Yu waved his hand. With someone at home to talk to, he didn’t want to go to sleep.
Unable to persuade him, Miao Lianhua let him peel the crabapples while she took up the pestle to mash the fruit. Just then, Lu Dongqing came over carrying a basket of persimmons and dried flowers.
“I ran into Old Master Tang delivering persimmons on my way home, so I brought them all together,” Lu Dongqing said as he set down the bamboo basket.
“Good timing. I’ve made a few new drinks. Try them,” Qiao Suiman was referring to drinks made by stir-frying three types of tea leaves with sugar and slices of sour yellow fruit.
He continued, “We can’t use the names Steward Fang came up with. We need to come up with something nice and different that people can recognize.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Lu Dongqing asked with a smile.
“Mm. ‘Fragrant Green Tea Drink,’ ‘Fragrant Camellia Tea Drink,’ and ‘Fragrant Tieguanyin.'”
Qiao Suiman grinned. This drink has both the aroma of tea and the fragrance of sour yellow fruit, especially Tieguanyin. If you get close, the tea aroma practically rushes into your nose. It truly lives up to the word ‘fragrant’!”
Lu Dongqing nodded in agreement. “That’s really good. Most of our future customers will be common folk. Having the tea names in there will help them choose what to drink. If we called them something like ‘Crystal Jade Beauty Drink,’ they might think it was some kind of divine elixir and be too intimidated to even ask the price.”
“That’s right. Here, taste them and see how different they are from the ones at the wine house.”
Lu Dongqing first took a sip of the Fragrant Tieguanyin. “The flavor is similar, but you can tell the tea taste is different. Overall, it’s good.”
After trying the other two drinks, he concluded, “The Tieguanyin has the strongest and most distinctive tea flavor, the Green Tea Drink comes next, and the Camellia Tea Drink has the mildest tea taste but the most pronounced sweet and sour flavor. You can clearly taste the difference between them.”
“I thought so too,” Qiao Suiman said cheerfully. “This way, customers will have more options.”
Qin Yu and Miao Lianhua found it interesting. The method was the same, but there were so many things to say about the taste.
With the persimmons delivered and an extra pair of hands available, Qiao Suiman handed the mashing task to Lu Dongqing while Miao Lianhua boiled the remaining crabapples into syrup as instructed. Qiao Suiman, now free, turned his attention to the persimmons.
He mashed part of the persimmon flesh, washed a small pot, and boiled it into persimmon syrup, setting aside a portion. Once the syrup was ready, he brewed some camellia tea with a lighter tea flavor and added sugar, then diluted the syrup with the tea, stirring evenly before adding in a few spoonfuls of fresh pulp. He divided it into four small bowls, giving each person one to drink.
After taking a sip himself, Qiao Suiman was quite pleased. The persimmon flavor was unique, and he had deliberately used camellia tea to avoid overpowering it with a strong tea taste. The result proved his decision right.
“This is so good,” Qin Yu said, his brows relaxing. “The persimmon’s sweetness is rich, yet you can still faintly taste the tea. Xiao Man, how are you so clever?”
“Hehe.”
Qiao Suiman chuckled. He loves making drinks. In the past, he didn’t have the opportunity, but now that he has the means to experiment with different flavors, he has countless more ideas in mind.
Miao Lianhua also praised him. “It’s not enough to just have ideas, you also need good skills. Many customers say that even though it’s the same drink, the one made by Xiao Man tastes better.”
As he drank, Lu Dongqing suddenly had an idea. “How about calling this one ‘Persimmons of Good Fortune'[mfn]”柿柿如意” (shì shì rú yì) sounds identical to the Chinese idiom “事事如意” (shì shì rú yì), which means “may everything go as you wish” or “all the best.” 柿柿如意 lit. means “persimmon-persimmon as you wish”, but translated into ” Persimmons of Good Fortune” for smoother flow, retaining the auspicious meaning[/mfn]? It’s not the same character, but the pronunciation matches, and it sounds auspicious!”
“‘Persimmons of Good Fortune,'” Qiao Suiman didn’t understand the meaning of the characters, but he found the name interesting. “Isn’t that like the ‘Immortal Peach Drink’ I came up with before?”
“That’s right,” Lu Dongqing replied.
“That works! This is a good idea. If I heard someone selling this on the street, even if I don’t buy it, I’ll definitely take a good look at it!” Qin Yu laughed.
The group chatted and laughed as they worked, continuing until the afternoon when all the crabapples were finally boiled into a syrup. Of the twenty jin of persimmons, fifteen were made into syrup and sealed, while the rest would be processed fresh when sold in the streets. Five jin clearly wouldn’t be enough, so Qiao Suiman planned to order another ten or so from Tang Xiao in a few days.
Lu Dongqing had discussed with the village chief the idea of clearing a bamboo forest behind the houses in the west of the village. Since few people went there, he was free to work as he pleased. Before the shop opened, he needed to transplant bamboo, make additional items for sale, and craft tables and chairs for the shop.
Qiao Suiman and Qin Yu decided that during this half-month, Qiao Ruifeng would accompany him to sell drinks in the streets, while Qin Yu could go to the west side of the village during the day to keep Miao Lianhua company.
That evening, Qin Yu had a long talk with Qiao Ruifeng, who finally stopped worrying as much. With Qin Yu going to the western village, he felt more at ease. The next day, he set off with Qiao Suiman to sell drinks around town.
Since their goal was both to earn money and spread the word about their upcoming shop, Qiao Suiman and Qiao Ruifeng focused their efforts around Beide Road and the surrounding areas. After noon, they returned to the East Market, setting up just outside the market area. Every day, they sold out before wei shi[mfn]未时 : 1-3 PM[/mfn] and packed up to go home.
The drinks were no longer uniformly priced but instead varied based on the cost of ingredients. The Roselle Drink was the cheapest at just five wen per serving, so it sold out the fastest. The Camellia Flower Drink, Fragrant Green Tea Drink, and Fragrant Camellia Tea Drink were all eight wen, while the Crabapple Thirst-quenching Drink and Fragrant Tieguanyin sold for ten wen. The most expensive was the Persimmons of Good Fortune at twelve wen.
The name Persimmons of Good Fortune was so pleasing that, just as Qin Yu predicted, many people would at least come ask about it even if they didn’t buy. Qiao Suiman was quick-witted and would take the chance to mention the other, cheaper drinks. Even if twelve wen was too much for some, five or eight wen was still affordable, so those drinks sold very well too.
Qiao Suiman also informed customers that on opening day, all drinks would be two wen cheaper. The five wen Rosselle Drink would only cost three wen. Many people’s eyes lit up when they heard this, and some even urged them to open earlier.
Once, they ran into Tang Xiao and Tang Guo’er at the East Market. Qiao Suiman gave them servings of Crabapple Drink and Persimmons of Good Fortune. The two were astonished by how delicious they were, never expecting that fruits from their own home could be turned into such fine beverages. Tang Guo’er looked at Qiao Suiman with eyes shining in admiration.
After selling drinks, he would return home and sometimes help Lu Dongqing and Lu Xuesong to clear the bamboo forest. Sometimes Qiao Suiman would also make a few bamboo tubes himself. Although they were not as beautiful as those made by Lu Dongqing, they were still usable. If there were too many customers when the shop opened and the prepared bamboo bowls and bamboo tubes were not enough, his own ones could still make up the difference.
Amid the busyness, half a month passed in the blink of an eye. Qiao Suiman and Lu Dongqing worked from dawn till dusk every day, too exhausted to even think about intimacy.
Fortunately, after half a month of hard work, the bamboo forest behind the house was finally ready, and everything needed for the shop was prepared. Qiao Suiman and Qiao Ruifeng sold goods along the street and earned more than ten taels, which was something they could never have imagined before.
Qiao Ruifeng worked hard for the past half month, hauling nearly ten barrels of drinks around every day. He initially only asked for twenty percent of the profits, but Qiao Suiman insisted on giving him thirty percent. Even then, Qiao Suiman’s share amounted to eleven taels.
They not only recovered the cost of ingredients but also made a sizable profit. Qiao Suiman felt that no matter how tired he was, it was all worth it.
On the first day of the second month, early in the morning, the two families set out together for the town, bringing everything that needed to be taken to the shop. Since Lu Dongqing and Qiao Suiman would be staying at the shop for the next few days and wanted to get acquainted with the neighbors beforehand, they brought quite a bit.
To live there, one needs to have a stove, pots, pans, and utensils. The two stoves would be used for brewing drinks, so they bought an additional small pot specifically for cooking and planned to build a makeshift stove for daily use. The two large pots and one small pot cost over a tael, which they had just picked up from the blacksmith’s shop yesterday.
The shop’s wooden tables, cash counter, shop sign, and chairs were all loaded onto the cart, along with bedding, a newly-made bed, changes of clothes, wooden barrels for drinks, and buckets and basins for washing. The two carts were almost too full, so they carried rice, flour, vegetables, and drink ingredients on their backs.
They were a large group, and the other villagers looked at them with envy and jealousy. The news that Qiao Suiman and Lu Dongqing were going to open a shop in town had already spread throughout Xiahe Village.
Zhou Shuifen, Chen Xuesheng, Auntie Qian, and Feng Jie were among the first to know. After the initial surprise, they seemed even more excited than Qiao Suiman, promising to visit the shop on opening day.
The carts were heavy, so Qiao Suiman carried a bamboo basket and helped push from behind, not letting Qin Yu lift a finger. It took nearly an hour to walk from their home to Beide Road. There was even a special spot reserved on the cart so that if he got tired, he could sit down and rest.
But Qin Yu was in high spirits and didn’t feel tired at all. It had been so long since he last went to town. The last time was before the New Year when he went with Qiao Ruifeng to buy New Year goods, more than a month ago.
With nothing else to do today, the group walked slowly and finally arrived at Beide Road before si shi.[mfn]巳时 : 9-11 AM[/mfn]
The Wu Family Noodle Shop was crowded with people, many of whom sat directly at the door, eating from their bowls. Seeing them drag so many things to the next door, someone asked, “Are you opening a new shop?”
Many of them were regular customers who knew that the shop next door used to be a pastry shop, but it had been closed for a long time and was reportedly moved to the East Market. Seeing Qiao Suiman’s group like this, it was obvious that they were the new owners.
Someone else curiously asked, “What are you selling?”
Noticing the bamboo crafts and carvings on the cart, someone else guessed, “A bamboo goods shop?”
Lu Dongqing nodded and replied with a smile, “The bamboo shop and the beverage shop have everything from drinks to daily necessities. We open on the fifth, and everything in the store will be cheap. Please come and take a look when you have time.”
“Well, this is amazing. One shop sells two kinds of things.”
“Hey! Aren’t these the two who used to sell drinks around here?”
One of the young men recognized Qiao Suiman and Qiao Ruifeng, and suddenly slapped his forehead. “That drink, Persimmons of Good Fortune, my wife loves it!”
“Thank you, kind customer. We will open on the fifth day of the month, and everything will be two wen cheaper then. You can bring your wife along,” Qiao Sui said with a smile.
“Alright. I think the Crabapple Drink is good too. Will that be just eight wen then?”
“Exactly.”
“Great! I’ll definitely come then. It’s close to my home, unlike before when I had to go to East Market to get a drink.”
Qin Xiaoyao heard the noise outside and stuck his head out. He was stunned to see Qiao Suiman and the others. He was momentarily stunned before breaking into a grin. “Are you opening soon?”
—
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Thanks for the chapter!