Chapter 19 Chapter 19 The tea syrup is ready, lemon tea...
Now that the tea syrup is ready, the most important part of lemon tea is also ready.
However, before officially setting up the stall, there are still some miscellaneous items that need to be purchased, such as containers, water sources, signs, etc. Shen Xuan could just make arrangements while the stall cart was not ready.
Koi Street has a history of hundreds of years as a commercial street, even longer than the founding of the Jin Dynasty.
As a very mature business system, people living in the surrounding area have a long history of renting out well water.
Many shops on the street had no space to dig a well, so they found someone to rent one nearby, charging ten cents a day, or about three hundred cents a month.
This little money is nothing to a shop, but the people who own wells nearby can rely on it to make a living. Just renting the well can bring in three or four taels of silver a month.
Some people are smart and have opened hot water workshops at home to help boil hot water and sell it by the cylinder.
A tank of hot water costs thirty cents, which is another good income.
During the days when Chen Xuan was writing the petition in Jinli Street, he had already figured out these ways while chatting with people. Now, going there is just a matter of finding a suitable family to make an appointment with.
But after he visited a few of them, he found that some families with good locations had already signed long-term agreements with popular shops on the street. Although they were also willing to supply water to Shen Xuan, they would give priority to those big customers.
After careful selection, only a family near Caohua Lane seemed suitable.
Although Caohua Lane is a bit far from Guiyun Tower, it is relatively close to Lezhou Academy.
Shen Xuan stood there for a while at noon, and saw many students from Lezhou Academy passing by. I feel like the business here should be pretty good.
The family is headed by a widow named Ge. Besides her, there is an unmarried daughter and a boy in the family. The family is simple and cannot take on too much work.
It is also because of this that many shops are reluctant to deal with them.
But Shen Xuan only had a small stall, and his water demand was not that great, so these were naturally not a problem for him.
He saw that the widow Ge's yard was kept clean. Although the family was not very wealthy, the family members were all dressed neatly. So he made an agreement with her, agreeing to rent the well from her every day and buy two cylinders of boiling water.
But now the weather is hot, and Shen Xuan requires the boiled water to be dried in advance, which requires her to get up before dawn every day to boil water.
Widow Ge's family depends on this man for their livelihood. Chen Xuan can give her seventy coins a day, so what's the big deal about getting up two hours earlier?
Widow Ge agreed immediately and asked politely, "Little brother, if you have any dishes that need to be washed, you can ask us to do it."
"I'm not a little brother, I'm a brother." Shen Xuan smiled helplessly, "I'll find you if I need you."
He hasn't decided what container to use yet...
When Widow Ge heard that he was a boy, she was surprised.
Seeing him setting up a stall by himself, I thought he was really smart and capable, and I was afraid that he had some difficulties at home like me.
By analogy, Widow Ge also felt a sense of mutual sympathy for Shen Xuan, and spoke to him in a more intimate manner.
After hearing that Shen Xuan was still looking for containers for tea, he said, “There are many stalls on this street, and the bowls and plates they use are not bought by themselves, but rented. They are returned to the store every day after renting, which is much more convenient than moving them around by yourself.”
"Can bowls and plates be rented?" This was the first time Shen Xuan heard of this and was a little surprised.
"Of course. About 200 meters around the corner from Yanzi Lane, there is a shop that specializes in renting and selling various containers. Many stalls rent bowls and plates there," said Widow Ge.
This is something that only the old people on Koi Street know. If Shen Xuan hadn’t communicated with her, she probably wouldn’t have known it.
Shen Xuan thanked Widow Ge and went to the shop she mentioned.
The shop's frontage was not very large, and it looked like just a shabby little door, but once you went inside it was a bright and spacious space, with the yard filled with all kinds of bowls and plates.
Sure enough, after a while, Shen Xuan saw a familiar figure carrying a bunch of bowls and plates away from his shop on a trailer.
When the shopkeeper saw Shen Xuan, he stepped forward and asked, "Sir, what kind of container do you want? Let me introduce it to you."
"I want a bigger cup for drinking tea." Shen Xuan said.
"The large tea cups are all here." The shopkeeper led Shen Xuan to a place and pointed to the piles of cups on the ground and said, "Here they are all. Please take your time to choose. Do you want to rent or buy?"
Shen Xuan took a look and saw that the ground was indeed filled with large teacups of various colors. There are colored porcelain, blue and white porcelain, green glaze, clay, and even wood and bamboo.
Shen Xuan asked about them one by one, and found that those exquisite and beautiful porcelain cups were frighteningly expensive, many of them costing one or two taels of silver each, so it was really not cost-effective to buy them. If you rent it out, it only costs two cents a day, so it's no wonder that many shops around here rent it out.
Compared to those porcelain cups, ceramic cups and wooden cups are much cheaper, and they only cost one cent a day to rent, which is even more cost-effective.
However, the cheapest ones are still cups made of bamboo. They are made by splitting the joints of thick bamboo directly. They are very original and you can buy eight for ten cents.
After Shen Xuan carefully compared them, he decided to just buy a bamboo cup.
The main thing is that he has to wash the rented cups himself. Even if he gives them to Widow Ge's family to help clean them, it will still cost money, which is almost the same as buying the bamboo cups.
In addition, although this bamboo cup is original, each person can take one away, which is cleaner and more hygienic.
Pedestrians bought tea from him and walked on the street with bamboo cups in their hands, which was like a living advertisement for him.
After Shen Xuan had a conversation with the shopkeeper, they made an agreement to come and get 200 bamboo cups every day.
His original plan was to sell only 200 cups of tea a day and stop there after they were sold out. The container cost of two hundred and fifty coins a day is acceptable.
After finalizing these, basically everything needed for the tea stall was ready.
Shen Xuan thought about it and returned to Koi Street.
After a while he returned home on his mule, which was loaded with a roll of canvas and some paint, which he was going to use to make a sign for his stall.
The place where he planned to set up the stall was very close to the academy, and the students who came and went were all literate. Making a sign with words on it will also be more attractive.
Shen Xuan has experienced the influence of the modern world, but he doesn't believe in the nonsense that good wine needs no bush.
The marketing war in the modern world is very fierce, and advertisements are everywhere. If you want to quickly stand out from the crowd of stalls on Koi Street, you have to use some marketing methods.
As soon as he got home, Shen Xuan spread the roll of canvas on the table, ground the ink and pigment, and carefully thought about what name to give his tea.
He doesn't dare to use random names like duck shit bergamot tea in modern times, for fear that others will really think there is duck shit in the tea.
Besides, the recipe of this tea is still confidential, and he doesn't want to directly expose the ingredients of this tea.
After thinking for a while, Shen Xuan felt that since citrus slices needed to be put in the tea, the name could also be related to citrus. In addition, Shen Xuan specially used expensive honey in the syrup. Although the amount was not much, it should be written down.
So they roughly decided on the name Honey Orange Tea and wrote it on a piece of straw paper nearby.
While Shen Xuan was thinking hard about naming the tea, Xue Fenglin was watching.
The sight of Shen Xuan holding the brush and frowning with full concentration was a beautiful sight in his eyes.
As a brother, Shen Xuan's handwriting is pretty good. Although she lacks some strength, she is still graceful and neat, better than many ladies in the capital.
In addition, when he wrote, he stood on one foot, while the other foot was bent uncomfortably, with his knees on the stool.
When she bends down to write, her waist is straight, and her butt is made to look even rounder...
When Shen Xuan looked up, he saw Xue Fenglin just staring at him without saying a word.
For some reason, he intuitively felt that Xue Fenglin's gaze was somewhat burning. After being glanced at by him, my face felt a little uncomfortable and hot.
She quickly turned his gaze away and said, "Lin Ye, don't just stand there and watch. Why don't you come over and help me think about it?"
Xue Fenglin heard this and then stood up from his seat and walked slowly to Shen Xuan's side.
"What do you think of the name I gave it?" Shen Xuan pointed at the words Honey Orange Tea and asked Xue Fenglin.
Xue Fenglin then looked at the words and thought carefully for a while before saying, "The name is easy to understand, but since you are setting up a stall near the academy, you might as well choose a homophonic name that scholars like."
"What's the homonym?" Shen Xuan asked curiously.
As soon as he finished speaking, he felt Xue Fenglin suddenly grab his hand holding the pen from behind. It directly wrapped his entire palm, dipped it in ink, and then guided his hand to write the big words "Honey Custard Tea" in a flamboyant style on the straw paper.
The two were already very close to each other at this time, and Xue Fenglin's action was as if he was hugging Shen Xuan from behind, which scared him.
Shen Xuan was stunned for a moment. The part of his body where Xue Fenglin touched was hot and burning, and he didn't know how to react.
He only felt that Xue Fenglin's breath seemed to fall on his ears, and there was a faint fragrance on his body, which made his hand holding the pen a little weak.
By the time he realized what was happening, Xue Fenglin had finished writing. He then let go of his right hand and took a step back, saying as if nothing had happened, "Ji Shi is the official title given to those who pass the imperial examination, and it is similar in pronunciation to orange in the Lezhou dialect. Using the word Ji Shi to replace orange is quite auspicious for scholars, and it may work well."
The literati and scholars of the Jin Dynasty were very particular about a good start, and their favorite were all kinds of phonetic puns.
There are many restaurants in Beijing whose menus are all filled with auspicious names. If no one introduces the food, you won’t even know what you’re eating.
Xue Fenglin had seen a lot, and when he heard Shen Xuan say that the stall would be set up near the academy, he immediately thought of the idea of replacing oranges with custard.
Shen Xuan's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he immediately forgot the embarrassment when he was writing just now, and immediately nodded and praised: "This name is indeed good."
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