Seeing that Chen Yan did not seem to be joking, Guan Wei had to touch his chest and tried hard to suppress his heart that was about to beat wildly.
He could understand that it was possible to find zero-pollution water.
But being able to provide chocolate and liquor in large quantities... he really couldn't understand it.
How to do it?
The key ingredient in making chocolate is cocoa butter.
Cocoa butter is a natural vegetable oil extracted from cocoa beans.
It appears solid at room temperature, but melts quickly in the mouth. This is because the melting point of cocoa butter is about 36 degrees Celsius, which just matches the human body temperature.
At the same time, cocoa beans come from the fruits of the cocoa tree, which prefers hot and rainy environments.
Before the Great Cataclysm, the main producing areas of cocoa beans were Central and South America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.
It can be seen from its place of origin that this thing has extremely high requirements for the growing environment. It must be planted and cultivated in an area close to the south of the equator and within 20 degrees north latitude.
But the problem is that the outbreak of the catastrophe has changed the global climate structure!
During the years when nuclear winter broke out, due to the sharp drop in global surface temperature, a large number of animals and plants died, causing the entire planet's ecological chain to suffer a devastating blow.
Although the nuclear winter has ended for many years and the ecological environment on the surface has recovered to a certain extent, the original ecological chain has been permanently changed.
At least in Guan Wei's opinion, things like cocoa trees should have become extinct.
As for cocoa butter substitutes, we still have the ability to produce them, but the output is quite limited.
In addition, the chocolate made with cocoa butter substitutes is very different from the natural cocoa butter in terms of taste and energy supplement. Therefore, the value of chocolate made with cocoa butter substitutes is always average.
The pure chocolate that Kahn Company can find basically comes from the frozen stock before the outbreak of the catastrophe.
This kind of chocolate in stock can be said to be consumed less as time goes by. At the beginning, the reserves were still sufficient and the price was relatively reasonable.
However, as time went on, when the powerful people discovered that the raw materials for making chocolate were no longer easy to cultivate, and all their chocolate sources could only come from the frozen stocks before the catastrophe, the price of chocolate skyrocketed!
Of course, the five top forces and a few large forces all have mature soilless cultivation technology. Coupled with the establishment of greenhouses, they can cultivate some qualified cocoa trees.
However, this approach is extremely costly. Even for the five top powers, growing cocoa trees in this way is still a bit unaffordable in terms of resource consumption.
Secondly, the output is extremely small. Compared with the rulers' huge demand for chocolate, that pitiful output is simply a drop in the bucket.
In such a situation, Chen Yan actually acted as if he could supply unlimited amounts of chocolate, which Guan Wei found a little bit hard to believe.
What's more, according to what Chen Yan said, he can provide unlimited amounts of not only chocolate, but even strong liquor!
This is even more exaggerated!
The raw materials of chocolate are at least needed by the upper class. Only those rulers or high-level awakeners with special status are qualified to imagine buying some chocolate to satisfy their cravings.
Most of the low- and middle-level awakeners, as well as the ordinary survivors living at the bottom of society, don’t even know what chocolate is!
But strong liquor is completely different!
Whether it is brewed with fruits, grains, sugar or other special ingredients, strong spirits are in the category of competing with the people for food!
When food supply is extremely sufficient, this problem is not a problem at all.
Since there was more food than could be eaten, what was the harm in using the surplus to make wine? On the contrary, it could create greater economic value!
But in the current wasteland time and space, in a world where even the awakened people often cannot get enough to eat, the raw materials that can be used to brew and distill strong liquors are of great significance!
To brew one pound of strong liquor, you need about three to four pounds of grain. One pound of liquor is obviously not enough to fill a person's stomach, but three to four pounds of grain may save a person's life!
Back then, during the three difficult years, the years when the new country was most short of food after its founding, countless people starved to death because they had no food to eat, and countless people were killed or fled from the famine, or were beaten to death or maimed in the food-grabbing campaign.
Despite such difficult times, the output of a certain winery has increased instead of decreased!
Actively support food across the country to ensure the continued growth of a certain winery's production capacity.
The chain reaction caused by this is that the population in some of the hardest-hit areas can drop by about 20%!
As we all know, the wine produced by a certain winery was never intended for ordinary people to drink.
Which class’s appetite is being satisfied by the ever-increasing production capacity?
In the days when ordinary people had to tighten their belts, a certain winery increased its production year after year and achieved a great leap forward in production capacity.
Whose table will the wine produced eventually end up on?
Is that wine on the table? It's clearly the flesh and blood of the lower classes!
The funny thing is that no one cares about this, because those who sit at the table drinking and eating meat are the ones who have the power to speak in this world.
As for the others, they are only worthy of being placed on the dining table.
Compared to high-end luxury goods like chocolate, spirits are actually more about whether the survivors at the bottom can survive.
The higher the production of liquor, the more survivors at the bottom will starve to death. This is inevitably a positive correlation.
Regardless of the level of power, they are all very concerned about the population size.
Adequate population is the premise and foundation for ensuring the steady development of power.
A small number of people killed is not a big deal, but if there are a large number of deaths, it will threaten the stability of the power's rule and eventually lead to the gradual decline of the power.
Therefore, even in a place like the wasteland where human life is not taken seriously, all major forces are very cautious about brewing strong liquor.
At the very least, the basic survival needs of the survivors in the area under their control must be guaranteed. Then, if there is any excess food, it will be used to brew a small amount of wine to satisfy their cravings.
As for those leaders of forces who completely disregarded the lives of other survivors, after years of development, they have basically been eliminated.
Those who can stay are all smart people.
Because all the idiots are dead.
"What you said... is true?"
Guan Wei asked in a hoarse voice.
Chen Yan nodded sincerely and said, "There is absolutely no falsehood."
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