Chapter 103: Pressing Tea Oil
After getting this improved bird gun, Gao Mingcheng's first thought was to go into the mountains to hunt and try out his marksmanship.
However, his grandmother reminded him to take the tea seeds to make oil, as there was not much lard left at home.
So Gao Mingcheng suppressed his inner impulse and decided to extract oil from the tea seeds first.
He picked up so many tea seeds that after peeling them there were still four large bags, weighing about 500 to 600 kilograms. It was impossible for him to carry them all by himself, and if he needed a tractor, it would be more expensive.
So he borrowed a flatbed cart from someone else, put the tea seeds on the cart, and pushed the cart towards the town.
There is an oil press in the town that can produce rapeseed oil, soybean oil and tea seed oil.
It is the tea seed oil harvest season, so all the oil here is tea seed oil. Before he even got close, Gao Mingcheng could smell the rich aroma of tea oil.
Outside the oil press, there is a large millstone with a donkey tied to the side of the millstone, which is using the donkey's pulling force to rotate and grind the oil.
The first step in extracting tea seed oil is to make it 100% dry. Gao Mingcheng has already achieved this step at home. The second step is to place the tea oil seeds on a grinding wheel and grind them into powder.
Next, grind the tea seeds into powder and pour them into the steamer to steam. This process takes about an hour. Only after steaming can the oil be squeezed out. The tea oil powder will be particularly soft, making it easier to squeeze out the oil.
Gao Mingcheng took the tea seeds off the flatbed truck, placed them next to the mill, and then started negotiating with the owner of the oil press.
This oil press has two charging methods. The first is that the oil press will leave the tea dregs behind, and you can leave directly with the tea oil.
The second way is that you want tea dregs, and then pay a certain amount of wages to the oil press.
Gao Mingcheng had already thought about this, so he chose the second option, and the people in the oil press started weighing the tea seeds.
In addition, experienced oil press masters will check the dryness of the tea seeds you bring. If they are not dry enough, they will not press them for you.
Because such tea seeds contain more water, the oil extracted from them is not of very good quality and has a small quantity.
There is a rough estimate of how much oil can be produced from 100 kilograms of tea seeds. If the oil output is less, disputes will arise.
After weighing, you can wait to grind the tea seeds into powder.
During this process, Gao Mingcheng was wandering around the oil press. Although the oil press looked simple and had no modern machinery, it had existed for many years.
Some people are responsible for crushing the tea seeds, some are responsible for steaming the tea seed powder, and some are responsible for filling the steamed tea seed powder into a round bamboo oil ring with a straw base to make tea oil cakes.
Don't underestimate this step. If the thickness of the tea oil cake is uneven, it will affect the oil yield. An experienced master can use an iron spoon to scoop up the right amount of tea seed powder for packaging based on his feeling, and the packaging technique is quite familiar and fast.
After making the oil tea cakes, the next step is the final step - oil extraction!
Gao Mingcheng stood in front of the oil bed, looking at the oil bed that had been used for many years.
The oil bed is carved out of a whole tree, which is a camphor tree over a hundred years old. It is the "main engine" of the entire oil press. A 2-meter-long and 0.4-meter-wide oil bed is carved out in the center of the tree, and the tea oil cakes are filled in the oil bed. After the tea oil cakes are filled, they can be squeezed.
Pressing is the most physically demanding part of the entire oil pressing process. As there is no machinery, the most traditional squeezing method is used. The masters drive wooden stakes of varying lengths and thicknesses into the cracks of the oil bed for squeezing. After a while, wisps of thin tea oil slowly drip from the oil bed, and then the entire oil pressing workshop will be filled with a refreshing fragrance.
Gao Mingcheng spent nearly five hours in the oil press to finally squeeze all the tea seeds he brought. When it came to the last step, Gao Mingcheng thought the oil press master did not have enough strength, so he went up and drove wooden stakes into the oil bed himself. Thanks to his efforts, well, at least several more kilograms of tea oil were produced!
Gao Mingcheng was very proud of this.
Even the masters at the oil press gave Gao Mingcheng a thumbs up and praised him for his strength.
After loading the tea oil and removing the tea dregs from the oil bed, they were piled together on the flatbed truck. After paying the wages, Gao Mingcheng pushed the flatbed truck towards Gaojia Village.
These tea dregs are good things. They can be used as natural shampoo, and can also be fermented into fertilizer, and then used to fertilize crops. Using this fertilizer can increase fatness, kill insects and increase sweetness.
It's better than ordinary manure.
Otherwise, why would the oil press be willing to keep the tea dregs? Because they want to sell them for money.
Since it was a good thing, Gao Mingcheng was willing to stay. He had reclaimed two mu of land near the new house. His family had few people and no poultry, so they were in need of fertilizer for farming.
In addition to these two acres of land, he also plans to reclaim a few acres of land. Of course, not all of these lands will be used to grow vegetables, but rather to grow some fruits.
Such as watermelon, melon, grapes, peaches, persimmons, etc.
He planned to go to the market to buy fruit seedlings after the Spring Festival, and then arrange all his favorite foods.
When Gao Mingcheng returned home, it was almost dark.
Grandma Xi was cooking in the kitchen. When she saw him come back, she immediately asked him with concern how much tea oil he had squeezed out.
Gao Mingcheng drank a bowl of tea first, and then said: "One hundred kilograms of dry tea seeds, and twenty kilograms of tea oil were squeezed out."
Grandma Xi cried out, "That's good. I heard that from 100 kilograms of dry tea seeds, only about 18 kilograms can be squeezed out. You can squeeze out 20 kilograms, which is very good."
Gao Mingcheng smiled slightly. The traditional pressing method had a relatively low oil yield. If he hadn't put in a little effort at the end, the maximum yield would have been 19 kilograms.
Gao Mingcheng put the tea oil into the house, then piled the tea dregs against the wall, and then returned the flatbed truck.
After returning home, seeing that there was still some time before dinner, Gao Mingcheng simply took out a hammer and started crushing the tea dregs.
The tea dregs after oil extraction are like a hard cake made of cement. Ordinary people cannot break it apart at all. They need to use a hammer to break it into pieces bit by bit.
Whether you use it to wash your hair or make fertilizer, you have to crush it first. Otherwise, it will be a large piece of hard tea dregs and you will be completely useless.
In the kitchen, the sound of spatulas frying can be heard, and under the eaves, hammers are pounding at a regular rhythm. The two sounds interact with each other, weaving together the most ordinary sounds of life.
As half a bucket of water was poured into the iron pot, making a sizzling sound, the grandmother shouted, "It's time to eat!"
"Hey." Gao Mingcheng stood up and walked towards the kitchen.
Gao Zhuang was making a fire and was about to take out the large piece of firewood that had not been completely burned in the stove and bury it in the ashes below, letting it go out bit by bit.
(End of this chapter)
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