"Win what, win! Look at your age! Still playing with puns every day, is it fun? Trying to trick me into saying lucky words before the competition!"
"Ah Qing, don't hold me back! Put me down, I'm going to punch him in the groin!"
The little fox, having been scammed by a stranger, cried out incessantly in the banquet hall and started cursing loudly.
Ansheng in his past life was a salesman, who later saved enough to open his own tea shop.
Though it wasn't a big venture, any businessman knows the importance of auspicious words or symbols when discussing business, especially during the holidays. It doesn't matter how you get them, as long as they have a good intention.
On the eve of the competition, the little fox was almost scammed into a fight with a stranger.
There's nothing to be done, unless a fox shouts loudly, all it can do is make "whimpers".
Or give a crisp and clear bell-like laugh.
"If the regional dialect is lucky, you choose puns, if Mandarin is lucky, you choose Mandarin, I spit! Damn it!"
Though Yu Xueqing held him, the little fox couldn't help but curse the one who dared seek honors.
"Xiaolan? What did you just eat?"
Yu Xueqing hugged the little fox from behind, with his arms naturally resting on the fox's belly. Normally, foxes are slender, but for some reason, Xiaolan's belly appeared quite roundish.
Yu Xueqing gave it a little shake, not hearing any water sloshing inside, realizing the little fox was solid.
Yu Xueqing looked puzzled at Xiaolan, suspecting he had quietly snuck out to steal some food.
"......"
The little fox glanced sideways, seeing Yu Xueqing's suspicious yet serious expression.
"This is a very complex question, I might need to draw an auxiliary line, then calculate a geometric equation, and combine it with psychology and folklore to explain....."
"But in short, I begged for food!"
'Whimper whimper. Master master! Someone hung a giant fishy in front of the house, I ate more than half of it, nibbling while jumping, eating and exercising, not getting fat...'
Yu Xueqing: "......"
"Xiaolan, do you want to die! How dare you eat things carelessly from the roadside! What if it has rat poison? Hurry, throw it all up!"
After being stunned, Yu Xueqing panicked, quickly shaking the little fox, almost forcing him to throw up what he had picked up and eaten.
Ansheng was nearly shaken until his brain was rearranged, quickly gesturing for Old Chen to come in and help.
Old Chen came to smooth things over, pointing out that what Ansheng stole was possibly a salted mackerel hung outside by a villager.
Rat poison in the village is distributed uniformly and wouldn't just be thrown on the streets, reassuring Ah Qing.
......
"Cough cough.... Old Chen, don't worry about it, having a naughty kid at home is normal, it's just that Ah Qing is particularly mischievous."
As the ancestor worship ceremony at the temple neared its end, Ansheng secretly invited Old Chen outside towards the exhibition area behind the temple, explaining as they walked.
In Ah Qing's family, Ansheng's overall family status was quite high.
It's just that Ah Qing was an extreme individual case.
"Whimper whimper whimper! Whimper whimper——" the little fox solemnly told Old Chen not to spread the word.
He might be shamelessly behaving cute to mooch free meals and drinks every day.
But Ansheng felt he had integrity, he just wanted everyone to know how cute Master Fox is.
"Master Fox.... perhaps, you should type it out?"
Listening to the whining beside him, Old Chen following behind Master Fox scratched his head and spoke up.
Couldn't understand... couldn't understand a thing Master Fox was saying.
[It's nothing serious, just asking you to come over for tea. To discuss how the tea prepared by Master Fox tastes and help me get into Ah Qing's family tea competition.....]
Seeing Old Chen hand over the phone, Ansheng typed a few sentences on it, pointing to a constant temperature room not far away.
Inside the temperature-controlled room, nearly thirty pounds of fresh tea leaves, after days of deep processing by Ansheng, had become less than eight pounds of finished tea, sitting in a gunny sack.
The tea had completed processing, but one procedure was yet unfinished, making it unsuitable for packaging.
"You really managed to make it?"
Old Chen untied the rope on the gunny sack, gazing at the coarse but tightly packed tea leaves shaped like bird beaks, smelling the bag's contents with just a rich aroma and no peculiar smells, showing an expression of amazement.
The light fragrance oolong tea crafted by Master Fox, Old Chen hadn't tasted it yet, but just from the uniformity and neatness of the tea leaves, he could tell the tea-making master had some skills.
Otherwise, after so many dehydration steps, the tea would have turned into crumbs long ago.
Since light fragrance oolong tea doesn't require roasting, its aroma can be directly smelled.
Old Chen only detected a strong floral fragrance without any burnt wok smell or other off-putting odors.
Judging from the smell and appearance, Master Fox's handmade tea had reached a high standard of production.
"But... within this, there seem to be more than twice the normal amount of tea stems compared to typical oolong teas?"
As he examined Master Fox's tea production, Old Chen noticed an odd phenomenon, these tea stems were clearly added on purpose rather than naturally occurring.
Old Chen knew Master Fox's tea-making process, told firsthand by Master Fox himself, about teaching Ah Qing how to make it someday, but what was up with these stems?
Despite not fully understanding, Old Chen still took a portion of the tea from the gunny sack into the adjacent tea room to boil water for tasting.
Normally, a typical serving of oolong tea for drinking involves using eight to ten grams to brew the tea soup.
Yet, Old Chen didn't use much this time, instead, he used a digital scale to precisely measure five grams of tea leaves.
Drinking tea for pleasure is about enjoyment, how you like it the best.
But now testing the tea, it should adhere to national standards for evaluation, with five grams of tea as the standard measure.
Old Chen first immersed a lidded bowl in hot water, warming it. Once heated, he placed the oolong tea in the warm bowl, adding hot water, and waited.
As he poured the hot water, Old Chen also simultaneously started a stopwatch on his phone.
A minute passed.
Old Chen picked up the lid of the bowl to begin the first step of the tea evaluation: smelling.
Slightly tilting the steaming lid, a rich floral scent mingled with tea fragrance wafted directly into Old Chen's nose. After lightly sniffing, his expression froze, with a huge question mark slowly appearing above his head.
Old Chen placed the lid back on the bowl, looking at Master Fox sitting by the tea table:
"Master Fox.... how much fragrance did you add to this tea? How could it be this fragrant? I haven't even sipped it yet and I can already sense the flavor and floral aroma of this lightly fragrant oolong tea?"
The concept of tea flavor sounds mystical, but it's all about the feeling brought by the tea soup interacting with the taste buds.
Aside from the tea itself, water quality and tea utensils are also vital elements.
Though Old Chen hadn't tasted Ansheng's tea, the aroma already made his mouth water, slightly tightening.
That feeling, the so-called tightening, refers to the tip of the tongue tingling, already imagining its taste in the mind.
Oolong tea aroma includes floral notes, which is why some oolongs are even named after flowers.
"Hehe... this is my special blend, tailored specifically to meet the judges' standards."
The little fox sported a proud grin, gesturing for Old Chen to try the tea soup's taste.
Evaluating oolong tea is mainly about the aroma and the rich, mellow sensation when tasted.