“Later, I’ll write a letter to Princess Imperial Yuning, telling her about the upcoming tea-tasting competition in Lin’an’s tea industry,” Ye Yaming said.

“Hahaha…” Ye Chongming finally burst into hearty laughter, pointing at Ye Yaming, “You mischievous imp.”

After laughing, he said, “I was originally planning to invite Official Qi to be a tea evaluator, along with some prominent figures from Lin’an as judges. If Prince Consort Fan and the Princess Imperial participate, we might even be able to invite Master Zhineng. Then the reputation of our tea would be unmatched.”

…

Ten days later, Lin’an’s first tea-tasting competition was held in a garden in Lin’an City.

The members of the tea industry watched with bitter expressions as Master Zhineng, Prince Consort Fan, Magistrate Qi, and others slowly entered the venue.

Though called a tea-tasting competition, it was essentially a tea evaluation competition. They had originally planned to hold it within the tea industry and, in the name of “fairness” and “neutrality,” invite a few people friendly to them to participate.

If the Ye family’s tea was not as good as theirs, or was about the same, this could be publicized. In this way, although the Ye family had taken the initiative this year by selling tea in large quantities a year in advance, they would still have a chance to compete with the Ye family next year.

They would be riding on the reputation of the Ye family’s tea.

If their tea was far inferior to the Ye family’s, then this tea-tasting competition would be purely for enjoyment; everyone would drink and disperse without saying a word to outsiders.

But somehow, Magistrate Qi had learned about the tea-tasting competition.

Magistrate Qi was very interested and specifically sent Secretary Wu to the tea industry to inquire about the situation. He then praised them and suggested inviting Master Zhineng as a judge, while expressing his intention to participate.

Everyone: “…”

Could they refuse?

Who didn’t know that Master Zhineng was particularly fond of the Ye family’s third daughter, who had married into the Xuanwu Marquis’s household, and that he was on intimate terms with Ye Chongming and Ye Hongsheng? Even Magistrate Qi himself was the maternal uncle of the third daughter’s husband, the heir. With his participation, could they still step on the Ye family to elevate themselves?

But one was Master Zhineng of royal descent, and the other was a local official; they truly didn’t dare to refuse.

Before they could figure out a solution, Prince Consort Fan and others from the capital somehow learned of this and excitedly came to Lin’an to be evaluators for the tea-tasting competition.

Everyone: “…” There was no second option but to accept defeat.

With Magistrate Qi’s involvement, representing the government’s intervention, this tea-tasting competition was presided over by Secretary Wu.

Secretary Wu first introduced the judges, then explained the rules for tea evaluation.

“…For the sake of fairness, all teas will be arranged in random order. The instructor Zhang from the Prefectural School will add the tea leaves, and the tea master from Jixiang Garden will brew them uniformly. The evaluators will score the tea in the cups according to their numbers. The full score is ten points.”

Master Zhineng, Fan Yu, and Magistrate Qi, plus three others previously invited by Wang Kuan and his associates, sat in a row behind the table. Seven tasting cups were placed in front of each person.

Soon, a tea master came over and poured tea from his fairness cup into each person’s first cup.

The evaluators first smelled the aroma, then observed the color of the tea, then tasted it carefully, and finally picked up their brushes to score on paper.

After they rinsed their mouths with boiled water, a second tea master, who had already brewed the tea, came forward to pour into the second cup.

The purpose of doing this was to ensure that each evaluator tasted freshly brewed tea for each round, to maintain fairness as much as possible.

The audience consisted of several dozen tea merchants from the tea industry, Princess Imperial Yuning, Tan Xuan’s group, and several officials from the government office. The event hadn’t been publicized for everyone to see.

This was mainly because, apart from the Ye family, neither Wang Kuan’s group nor officials like Magistrate Qi were certain of the outcome. They were all worried about losing face if the side they supported lost, especially given that the Ye family held the title of tribute tea suppliers.

Wang Kuan, Zhou Qingsong, Shi Guilin, and Li Sheng, who had little status in the tea industry to begin with, were now even more self-conscious and stood in a corner some distance from the crowd.

“Brother Wang, do you think Qin Sixiang can win?” Zhou Qingsong asked in a low voice.

He was the most nervous one, after all, he had sold the tea formula to Wang Kuan.

Although the Ye family hadn’t explicitly stated that the tea formula couldn’t be resold to others, the Ye family had refused to sell the formula to Wang Kuan. His actions were directly opposing the Ye family.

But what choice did he have?

His funds were already limited; after spending tens of thousands of taels to buy the tea formula, he couldn’t even pre-order this year’s spring tea. If Wang Kuan hadn’t approached him, proposing to jointly purchase the tea formula under favorable conditions, he wouldn’t have even thought of buying the formula.

Now Zhou Qingsong just hoped that the tea made by Qin Sixiang could surpass the Ye family’s tea. Having offended the Ye family, he naturally didn’t want them to become increasingly successful and stronger.

Wang Kuan maintained a calm face: “Haven’t you tasted the tea he made? What do you think?”

“It’s better than the Ye family’s.”

“Then there you have it,” Wang Kuan said with self-satisfaction.

Shi Guilin and Li Sheng also nodded: “Indeed, it’s better.”

If not for this, they wouldn’t have aligned themselves so closely with Wang Kuan and Zhou Qingsong.

Other tea merchants, sitting or standing in small groups, while not daring to express their thoughts as openly as Wang Kuan’s four, also hoped their tea would win and the Ye family’s tea would lose.

The evaluation of each tea didn’t take long; all seven teas were evaluated in just half an hour.

Two clerks from the government office, skilled in arithmetic, collected the papers from the evaluators, tallied the scores, and handed the results to Secretary Wu.

Secretary Wu announced: “First place, number five; second place, number two; third place, number one…”

Everyone showed no expression upon hearing these numbers.

Because no one knew which number represented which tea. Not only did the evaluators above and the competing tea merchants below not know, but even the tea masters who brewed the tea didn’t know.

After Secretary Wu’s announcement, the instructor who had been adding tea leaves to the teapots in the back room came out with a paper in hand and read: “Pot number one, competitor Jin Baoshan; pot number two, Wang Kuan… pot number five, Ye Chongming…”

“Hahaha, I told you, the Ye family’s tea is the best,” Fan Yu laughed and said to Master Zhineng upon hearing this. “The tea from pot number five is much better than the others.”

Master Zhineng nodded, stroking his beard: “The Ye family’s tea is much better than last year. It’s not easy to surpass oneself by so much.”

He pointed to the second cup: “This family’s tea is made quite well. If the Ye family hadn’t improved, they would have been evenly matched this year, making it hard to determine a winner.”

Upon hearing that he had lost, a chill ran through Wang Kuan from head to toe.

He had not only lost face but would also have to give Qin Sixiang’s family to Ye Chongming.

This was unacceptable to him.

Since he had already burned bridges with the Ye family, he wasn’t afraid of offending anyone now.

He asked loudly, “Honorable officials, could we also taste the Ye family’s tea? At least let us lose with full conviction.”