Steam rose from the steamers of breakfast stalls near the pier, and the sizzling sound of shrimp cakes dancing in the oil mingled with the aroma of seafood noodle soup, filling the streets and alleys near the pier.
Early risers, yawning, sat in small groups at the breakfast stalls, looking at photos on their phones with half-open eyes and sniffing the aroma in the air.
Regular customers enter the shop and casually pick up the aluminum teapot to pour themselves a cup of wild tea soup. The tea soup, mixed with sour plum, is a perfect way to start the day for their taste buds.
Not far from the breakfast stalls, the sounds of cruise ships could be heard. Near the docks, fishermen wore expressions of joy at their harvest, bending down to sort the silvery fish leaping in their nets. Women deftly categorized the seafood they had caught, scraping and washing oyster shells. The fishy smell mingled with the aroma of the breakfast stalls.
As dawn broke, the figures in the old house were already yawning and getting up.
After returning from the big city, the female protagonist was busy repairing the old house and hadn't had a chance to really explore the area. She wandered around the streets looking for her breakfast for the day.
After breakfast, I strolled along the streets and alleys. In summer, the temperature rises quickly after the sun rises, and I could already feel the heat after just having breakfast.
Sister Mei, who runs a general store, stopped the female protagonist and handed her several packets of herbal tea ingredients, telling her to go back and boil some water to try it.
When honeysuckle and licorice herbal tea is brewed, the room is filled with a pleasant fragrance; just smelling it is enough to make you feel refreshed and relieved. However, it still needs to cool down. When I was a child, my grandmother would put it in the yard and use a palm-leaf fan to cool it down. I was very young then and always impatient, asking every few minutes when I could drink it. Fortunately, we have refrigerators now, so we can drink the cooled herbal tea much faster.
A few days ago, Sister Mei gave the female lead some ripe green plums, and the plum syrup she made seems to have been brewing for some time now, so it should be ready to drink soon.
The female protagonist first took a small amount to taste, and found it to be a little sour and a little sweet. Unexpectedly, with layers of green plums and rock sugar, it wasn't too sweet in the end.
Suddenly, she had a flash of inspiration. She put ice cubes at the bottom of the glass, then poured in chilled soda water, and finally added her homemade plum syrup. She took a picture of the color change of the drink with her phone, and then carefully took a sip.
The female lead's eyes narrowed into slits. Delicious! The first sip was like a mini tsunami, the dense bubbles of sparkling water quickly sweeping through her mouth, with the hissing sound of the bubbles jumping around. Then came the original sourness of the green plum. The stubborn wild fruit was slowly sugared by the sweetness of rock sugar, turning that stubborn sourness into a sweet sourness.
After the rock sugar coats the green plum, the originally cloying sweetness is transferred to the plum. Over time, the two become intertwined, creating a sweet and sour flavor that complements the plum perfectly. Paired with the refreshing sparkling water of summer, it's a symphony of coolness and agility on the palate. It's a collision of layers of sourness, sweetness, and bubbles, and the cool fragrance of a chilled green plum that has lasted through the entire summer.
Suddenly she remembered that she had some perilla leaves at home, and then this summer drink gained a refreshing taste, with a herbal coolness reminiscent of the damp earth in a plum grove after the rain.
As the weather got hotter, the female protagonist suddenly wanted to brew some plum juice herself. When she worked in the big city, she would occasionally receive free boxes of plum juice from takeout vendors. She suddenly became very curious about what plum juice she could brew herself would taste like.
As she passed by the coffee shop with her package, she suddenly saw Uncle Chen.
Uncle Chen ushered the female protagonist inside. The air conditioning in the coffee shop was like a torrential downpour, instantly cooling her down the moment she stepped in.
Uncle Chen's grandson, Xiao Ye, returned from the big city and opened a coffee shop. At this time, he was trying out a new product: hand-drip iced coffee.
Uncle Chen was Xiao Ye's first taster, and the female lead was also invited to be the second taster.
She had only ever drunk chain coffee in big cities, and had never tried hand-drip coffee, let alone iced drip coffee.
The glassware in front of me gleamed coldly. The upper part of the ice drip pot contained broken ice and water that had melted from the ice tower. If you got close, you could almost feel the chill that the ice tower had preserved.
The filter paper covering the coffee powder is in the lower funnel, like a small hill, with the dark brown powder containing the aroma of roasted and ground coffee beans.
As she listened to Ono's introduction, she could vaguely smell the aroma of wild strawberries, as well as the bitter, burnt flavor of coffee itself.
Water droplets fell one by one through the tiny hole of the piston valve. As the ice water fell into the coffee grounds, brown ripples quietly spread along the edge of the filter paper, like the first ripples on the thawing surface of a lake in early spring.
Some time has passed, and the deep amber liquid has accumulated to half a cup in the bottom pot. The ice is slowly melting, and the extra edges of the ice refract tiny specks of light, as if each piece of ice has been incorporated into the coffee.
When you get close, the cool fruity aroma is mixed with caramel notes. It doesn't hit you like hot coffee, but rather feels like an evening breeze infused with cool moonlight—clear and lingering. You have to get close and savor it to appreciate its coolness.
The heroine's fingertips touched the glass, feeling a cool sensation. She took a small sip, the liquid sliding into her mouth. The instant chill slid down her throat, followed by the slow spread of the warm caramel flavor. As it traveled down her esophagus to her stomach, the caramel flavor, gradually warmed by her body, lost some of its bitterness, leaving only a cool sweetness.
The taste was completely different from the hot coffee she had tasted before. If the hot coffee before was like a spirited horse, then this hand-drip iced coffee was like the crisp, cold taste of snow that you suddenly breathe in on a snowy day. It was accompanied by the taste of hazelnuts that had been roasted. The coldness seemed to bury the original bitterness of the coffee under the snow, leaving only the mellow and sweet aftertaste, which enveloped the entire mouth with a warm and cool feeling.
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
