"For those who want traditional kneading techniques to make tea, typically there are only two kinds: one is the super-rich, playing with tea that costs thirty to fifty thousand per liang, but someone like Lao Deng may not even manage to get high-end scraps."
"And the other kind, well, are super eccentrics!" The little fox confidently chirped wiht a pout.
The customer that Ah Qing is now encountering is someone that Ansheng had actually come across when he managed tea houses and tea plantations in his past life.
The traditional kneading technique, formally speaking, involves strong men wearing rain boots and using their feet for kneading.
Of course.
You can use your hands as well, but hand strength and endurance don't quite match that of feet. Kneading the fresh tea leaves with feet has the added benefit of using your own weight to crush, breaking the cell tissues of the tea leaves and releasing the sugars, polyphenols, and aromatic substances inside the leaves.
The arm strength just doesn't quite cut it, and you could be paralyzed after kneading only a few kilos of green tea leaves.
So, it's implicitly understood that manual kneading is done with feet, unless it's some particularly precious green tea leave, or a small trial batch worth the meticulous hand-kneading of a Tea Master.
And the strange customer encountered by Ah Qing involves a group that even Ansheng finds ridiculously wild.
Some of them might love tea, or not like tea at all, but they're willing to pay around three to five thousand per jin to buy tea leaves.
And the only condition they have is.
When kneading the green tea leaves, it must be done by a pretty girl, barefoot, and they need video proof.
They don't give a damn about how the tea tastes.
But the girl kneading the tea has to be pretty.
"Ah Qing, don't bother with those people. Even though the cash in their pockets is easy to earn, they're notorious for pushing their luck..."
"At first it's enough as long as it's a girl doing the kneading, but later on, they might even ask for bust size, foot size." When it comes to the tea industry, Ansheng is an encyclopedia of the history of tea; he can tell what bullshit the other side wants to pull just by a lift of his tail.
"You want pretty girls to knead tea leaves barefoot?" Ah Qing listened to the little fox chirp, saying full of shock:
"This... wouldn't the Food Safety Bureau be onto us?"
"But, Xiao An, how do you know things even Dad doesn't know?"
Ah Qing picked up the little fox, placed it on the table, and asked, eyes wide with curiosity.
"It's all Old Chen who taught me!"
Master Fortune Fox lifted his head, diverting the issue directly to Old Chen: "I heard it all from him!"
"The village chief?"
Upon hearing this, Ah Qing nodded, feeling it made sense because Xiao An is just a slightly smarter fox, not even a year old, how could he know so much.
But hearing it from the village chief makes sense.
The village chief has seen big winds and waves, having dealt with tea his whole life, so consulting him on tea industry matters surely can't be wrong.
"Ah Qing, what's up?" Yu Zhenghong noticed Ah Qing putting Master Fortune Fox on the table and mentioning the Food Safety Bureau, and couldn't help but ask.
"It's nothing, just..." Ah Qing relayed what Xiao An had just said to her dad and mom.
"???"
Yu Zhenghong looked utterly flabbergasted, as did Chen Peipei and Ah Qing's third uncle and aunt, as if their worldview had just been completely altered.
What Ah Qing said was too outrageous.
So outrageous that they don't want to believe it's true.
"It's... it's simply defiling!" Yu Zhenghong trembled all over; he used to wash his hands raw before picking tea stems and sieving tea scraps and worried about sweat contaminating the tea leaves, always wearing gloves and a hat.
Now...
Someone is actually telling him.
That tea leaves prone to food-borne contamination can sell for three to five thousand a jin, making Lao Deng almost numb from the shock.
Then... what did that mean for his fully armed tea stem and tea scrap sieving in the attic during the hot summer?
Lao Deng was directly furious and shaking with cold anger.
"Husband, calm down, those weirdos are just a minority anyway." Chen Peipei saw Yu Zhenghong shaking with anger, gave a wry smile, and handed over the menu to him soothingly. "Order something! We can't let Master Fortune Fox go hungry, or luck might run out."
"Ah Qing, you better block those guys." Yu Zhenghong muttered with a face full of frustration, then added, "The Music Note Shop will resume business after the festival. We were planning to hire people, but due to some matters, we haven't done so yet. Right now, only your mom and I are in charge of packing and shipping..."
The "some matters" Yu Zhenghong mentioned referred to his empty pocket, with no spare money to hire staff at the moment.
It's not that he has no money at all; it's just that he urgently needs to pool together four hundred thousand.
An expert Tea Master's friend of Old Chen's has real skills. Yu Zhenghong plans to spend four hundred thousand yearly as a consulting fee to have the master guide the tea garden either remotely or in person. Yu Zhenghong intends to maintain this consulting relationship for two to three years, establishing good rapport with the master.
Though Old Chen said he didn't need it, the introduction fee and labor fee still shouldn't be lessened.
For a master who can turn fallen leaves into treasure, without Old Chen as a bridge, it's hard for ordinary people to even meet him.
The fact that he even takes the consulting fee is giving face to Old Chen; otherwise, he'd be too lazy to bother and would have gone globetrotting long ago.
Opportunities must be sought actively.
Yu Zhenghong believes the master is worth that price, especially as the tea garden is starting up and the tea factory process is not yet perfected, getting guidance from the master can save 90% of the effort.
On the business side of things, Yu Zhenghong and Chen Peipei have not mentioned any of this to Ah Qing, to keep from distracting her from her studies.
Ah Qing has been doing exceptionally well in her studies. Her professor even called personally, saying he had secured a guaranteed place for her in grad school.
Upon completing her studies, employment at the Agricultural Research Institute is guaranteed, with a starting salary of two thousand after taxes.
Returning home to farm is one option, but with her excellent grades, Ah Qing has more pathways than just returning to farm.
"Dad, Mom, Uncle, Aunt, I'm full."
Having eaten three baskets of shrimp dumplings, three salted egg yolk buns, a crispy red rice sausage, and two bowls of fish porridge, Ah Qing gave a blissful smile as she greeted the elders at the table, preparing to get down.
"Hmm? Is your appetite not very good?" Chen Peipei remarked in surprise, "The stir-fried noodles haven't been served yet!"
"I'm really full. It's been so hot and sultry lately, I don't have much of an appetite." Smiling broadly, Ah Qing leaned against Chen Peipei, wrapping an arm around her, saying:
"And there's one more thing, is our stewed fish head pot still charged? I wanted to go to a friend's house to bring some tea and mooncake to Lingling, and also do a live stream telling the audience about the Music Note Shop."
"It should be fully charged, right? We charged it up and left it at the outdoor parking of the neighborhood. I've been busy dealing with village matters these past few days and haven't moved it, you might want to check." Chen Peipei pondered.
She had been preoccupied with arranging the house, preparing for the mooncake festival ceremony, so when needing a vehicle, she'd use the old family pickup truck, not the small electric car.
"Don't rush, don't rush, it looks like Master Fortune Fox is only about seventy percent full just yet..."
Three baskets of shumai were just served, and Yu Zhenghong placed one basket on the children's chair where Master Fortune Fox sat, beaming as he spoke to Ah Qing, urging her not to hurry as Master Fortune Fox hadn't even had his dessert or cola yet.
Ah Qing and Chen Peipei exchanged glances.
The little fox squatted on the children's chair, contentedly chirping as it devoured the shumai from the plate, even leaving behind chicken claw bones spat out after eating the phoenix claws.
"Tutu-tutu—"
After finishing the shumai, the little fox turned to the phoenix claws; tender and soft, the phoenix claws down the gullet with just a bit of wriggling and in no time the bones were spat out neatly on the tray of the children's chair.
"Huh?"
Ansheng eating the phoenix claws and spitting out bones left Ah Qing and Chen Peipei astonished.
Spitting bones... is it this smooth?