Chapter 271: Making Frosting
After he left, the three people who had just quietly moved to a table next to them came back.
Sang Yongjing, who had been eavesdropping, nudged Sang Yu with his elbow and asked in a low voice, "Hey, Yu'er, why didn't you agree to update twice more?"
He was also looking forward to hearing the story of Sun Wukong's havoc in Heaven as soon as possible.
“…” Sang Yu rolled her eyes silently. So you only heard this one sentence, right? Everything else she said was in vain.
She patiently explained it to Sang Yongjing, and he nodded in sudden realization: "You really have a business mind, you're smart."
Being praised by him was not something to be happy about at all. Sang Yu just smiled politely and looked thoughtfully at the storyteller who had returned to the middle storytelling stage.
What she wanted was not just one show in the morning and one in the afternoon, but what she wanted was for Zhongjia Teahouse to tell the story of "Journey to the West" all day long, completely squeezing out other storybooks.
This is not really her extravagant hope. Once "Journey to the West" becomes popular, the chain reaction that follows will siphon a large number of people to gather here.
The space of the entire teahouse is limited to this size. Even if every table and seat is occupied, how many people can it accommodate?
She didn't believe that the wealthy families in Lingnan City would travel alone every time. They would always bring some servants to guard them and show off their wealth.
The kind of scene in ordinary teahouses where people can just stand and watch without caring whether there are seats or not will never happen here on Qinghuan Street.
So when they face the situation of the entire teahouse being packed, what requests will they make? It is almost natural to add more shows or go to other teahouses or houses to tell stories.
However, Sang Yu had previously signed a contract with Zhong Xueru, temporarily authorizing the script of "Journey to the West" only to the Zhongjia Teahouse.
With Zhong Xueru's identity and background, it is not difficult to stop those people's unreasonable requests. In the end, the highest bidder will win.
A seat at Zhongjia Teahouse can be sold for a sky-high price, and there may even be scalpers trying to take up the seats.
However, these beautiful expectations must be based on the fact that the subsequent stories of "Journey to the West" can be maintained at the same level.
Sang Yu is definitely the most confident about this because it has been verified many times.
She believed that by that time, the copy of "Journey to the West" that she asked Liu Mao to send to the city lord's illegitimate son would be the stepping stone for her to establish a relationship with the other party.
After listening to the story with satisfaction, the milk tea and double skin milk they brought were almost sold out, so the three of them said goodbye to Liu Mao and prepared to go home.
Before leaving this time, Sang Yu went to the nearby market and bought a huge amount of sugar. He bought up all the sugar sold by the vendor, which was more than 50 kilograms.
At first, Sang Yongjing and Sang Xingjia thought she was going to use it in the sweet drink shop and were planning to carry it there. But they saw her walking straight towards the west city gate, apparently preparing to go home directly.
Sang Xingjia was carrying a bamboo basket filled with the expensive cane sugar he had just bought. He was puzzled: "Hey, little sister, aren't you sending this sugar to the store?"
How long will it take to finish these fifty pounds of candy when I get home?
"No, I'm going to take it back and process it." Sang Yu had already made plans.
Just as she had thought before, the sweet drink industry did not use many ingredients, and sooner or later someone would be able to create exactly the same taste, so she would have to work harder on the condiments.
However, due to the limited ingredients, the only condiment she can offer is konjac. It may seem novel at first, but after eating it more often, it will feel just like that.
So she started with another indispensable ingredient in sweet drinks.
Sucrose is extracted from sugarcane. The planting volume at that time was not very large. Even in the place of origin, the price was still twice as high as malt sugar.
It is expensive not only because of its bright color, but also because of its strong and direct sweetness, which is almost 1.5 times that of malt sugar.
What Sang Yu wanted was not only double the sweetness, but also to extract icing sugar from it, which is the white sugar in later generations.
However, due to the limitations of today's technology, the extracted white sugar looks similar, but in fact it still contains molasses and has a low yield.
Fortunately, she planned to use white sugar as a secret weapon and did not plan to use it from the beginning. She had plenty of time to do it slowly.
Even if other stores made drinks that tasted exactly the same, she would immediately replace all the sugar in her store with white sugar.
While the taste instantly improved, the other party still couldn't figure out the difference and had to slowly figure it out.
Even if they figured out that she was using white sugar, given the current price of sugar on the market, they would simply not be willing to buy it.
If you really buy it to use, the cost will increase rapidly, and you will not only make little profit but may even lose money.
This is an example of what it means that books are the golden house and knowledge is power.
There is no need to worry about her sweet drink recipe being stolen, as she is just playing an open game.
She can even openly tell others that she uses frosting sugar. Her sugar costs are still within an acceptable range. Can others do the same?
Although they didn't know what the specific steps of the "processing" she mentioned were, both father and son knew that Sang Yu would never do anything that was thankless, so they stopped asking.
When passing by the market in front of the canyon entrance on his way home, Sang Yu bought a few pottery jars and a funnel-like clay pot, and then went to the stream to dig up a large basket of yellow mud.
After washing out the gravel, pebbles and other debris mixed in the yellow mud, she prepared to start making frosting using the traditional method in "The Exploitation of the Works of Nature".
First melt the purchased cane sugar, then pour it into the clay pot with straw stuffed underneath. After the sugar is completely solidified, pull out the straw.
Add water to the previously cleaned yellow mud and stir evenly to make yellow mud water. After it stands for a while, use a ladle to scoop up the upper layer of the yellow mud water solution and pour it into the tiles one spoonful at a time.
The Sang family members who were watching curiously on the side saw this prodigal behavior, but no one said anything to stop it.
Only after Sang Yu finished watering did Sang Yongjing ask, "Yu'er, what are you doing?"
Wouldn't it ruin the sugarcane that you bought at a high price by pouring yellow mud water on it?
"I'm making frosting. This method may seem outrageous, but after half a month, you can see white crystals of frosting."
When Sang Yu first heard about the yellow mud water sugar sprinkling method, he thought it was made up by someone to fool people.
After she conducted in-depth research, she discovered that this method was not only real but also scientifically sound.
The so-called icing sugar in ancient times is white granulated sugar, which is not the same as the white granulated sugar in later generations. Its color is yellower and darker.
This is because the yellow mud water sugar sprinkling method works like activated carbon, absorbing the pigments in sucrose, making the original sucrose decolorize and turn white, while it still contains a large amount of molasses.
The pigment is absorbed by the yellow mud and the molasses is separated by gravity to obtain the icing sugar.
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