After exchanging pleasantries with Chen Zhen, Ye Yaming then greeted Ye Chongming and Ye Hongchang: “Grandfather, First Uncle.”
During Ye Yaming’s postpartum confinement, even Ye Chongming, her grandfather, couldn’t enter her room. Since she had given birth to twins, Old Lady Ye and Madam Yin both believed she had weakened her body and wished she would stay in confinement for two months. Thus, even though it had been half a month since her confinement period had officially ended, Ye Yaming still wasn’t allowed to leave the courtyard for fresh air.
As a result, Ye Chongming hadn’t seen Ye Yaming for over a month.
Ye Yaming hadn’t gained much weight during her pregnancy, as all the nutrients went to the children. But she had gained a few jin during her confinement.
Now her complexion was rosy, her skin plump and supple, her whole being like a ripe peach, radiating maternal glory. She looked completely different from her former self with pale skin, slender figure, and cool temperament.
Ye Chongming, being an elderly man, preferred to see his granddaughter in her current state.
Therefore, he nodded repeatedly, saying, “You’ve gained weight, and that’s good. You were too thin before, now you’re just right.”
Ye Yaming, who had been planning to exercise and lose weight: “…”
Not wanting to discuss this depressing topic, she turned to Chen Zhen with a smile: “Winter in the Great Jin will arrive soon, and this tea must be transported there before winter comes. Time is pressing, and I’m sure Official Chen doesn’t want to waste time either. The tea is all in the warehouse; I’ll take you there directly. After you’ve checked the samples, if there are no problems, the tea can be weighed and transported immediately.”
Chen Zhen appreciated this straightforward approach to business.
He said, “Thank you for your understanding, Madam Lu. This way, please, Official Lu, Madam Lu, Elder Ye.”
The group went to the warehouse.
When the main door opened, rows of shelves three to four meters high appeared before them. On the shelves were stacked brick-shaped tea blocks wrapped in bamboo leaves, filling the shelves like a wall of bricks, forming rows of tea brick walls.
The reason for using bamboo leaves to wrap the tea bricks, rather than paper as in later times, was that paper was too expensive in this era. Using paper would increase costs significantly and would be easily damaged during transport.
Bamboo leaves, on the other hand, were cheap, attractive, and durable. Wrapped and tied with hemp rope, they were the most suitable packaging material.
“How many jin of tea are you delivering this time?” Chen Zhen asked.
Ye Yaming glanced at Ye Chongming.
Ye Chongming said to her, “You arranged all this tea, so you know the situation best. Don’t worry about us elders; just speak directly with Official Chen.”
Ye Yaming nodded, then said to Chen Zhen, “The tea trees in Huizhou and Minzhou haven’t fully matured yet and can only be harvested next year. So this year, we can only deliver 150,000 jin of dark tea.”
Apart from raw materials, there was also a shortage of experienced tea masters. So this year, they were delivering the minimum required amount of tea.
Chen Zhen nodded and smiled: “That’s fine.”
For the first year of trading with the Great Jin, it was better to have a smaller quantity of dark tea than a larger one. A smaller quantity would help maintain a higher price. If the Ye family had delivered 250,000 jin of tea this year, Chen Zhen would have considered holding back 100,000 jin.
But in that case, the Ministry of Finance would have had to tie up a large amount of silver in this business. Although the Great Jin was quite prosperous and the national treasury was not empty, the country needed money for many purposes, and stockpiling goods could easily lead to criticism of the Ministry of Finance.
Now that the Ye family was only delivering 150,000 jin of tea, the Ministry of Finance didn’t have to worry about this issue at all.
He then asked, “Won’t the tea spoil if stored like this?”
He asked this because both Longjing tea and the Tieguanyin that Lu Guanyi had given him as a return gift when he visited the Lu mansion a few days ago needed to be carefully stored in tin boxes to preserve their color, aroma, and flavor.
If stored in jars, two paper-wrapped packages of quicklime had to be placed at the bottom and top of the jar to absorb moisture and keep the jar dry.
“During the plum rain season in Jiangnan, this storage method wouldn’t work. But these teas arrived after the plum rain season, so dry weather isn’t a concern. In the Great Jin, the climate is dry year-round, so the tea can be stored directly in rooms and will keep for ten or twenty years without any problems.”
Ye Yaming had explained all this to Chen Zhen when she first introduced the dark tea. The reason Chen Zhen asked again was out of a sense of responsibility for this business transaction, wanting to reconfirm with Ye Yaming so he could relay this information to the Great Jin officials.
Ye Yaming showed them through several warehouses, introducing all the tea to be delivered.
When they entered the last room and saw that the tea bricks were wrapped in paper, Chen Zhen’s curiosity was piqued, and he asked, “Is this dark tea made with better and more expensive materials?”
“Yes,” Ye Yaming said. “You’ll know the quality of this tea when you compare it with the others during the sample inspection.”
This batch of tea not only used good tea leaves, but she had also applied a sprinkled-surface treatment.
Tea connoisseurs know that only tender buds and young leaves have the downy hair known as “hao.” The hao is white, with the tenderest buds covered in white down, which disappears by the fourth leaf.
So when buying tea leaves, the first step in judging quality is to examine the dry tea. If the dry tea has a lot of hao, it indicates that the fresh leaves used were extremely tender and the materials were of excellent quality. Otherwise, it would be old leaves and stems.
Old leaves have a stronger, bitter, and astringent taste, poor freshness, and an inferior flavor.
When making dark tea, the raw materials undergo pile fermentation, which turns them black. However, tea leaves with hao can still be distinguished—the contrast between black tea and white hao is quite obvious.
In Ye Yaming’s previous life, Anhua dark tea was divided into “core tea” and “sprinkled-surface tea.” The production techniques differed, but the idea was the same: sprinkle the highest quality raw material with the most hao on the surface of the dark tea, making the tea brick appear to be of extremely high quality so it could be sold at a premium.
This tea had to be produced in two parts, with complex blending techniques. Ye Yaming had limited manpower, and the tea masters’ skills weren’t fully developed, but this tea was meant to be sold to the Great Jin’s royal family and nobility. Thinking about how the Great Jin harassed the border regions every year, causing many soldiers and civilians to lose their lives, Ye Yaming wanted to charge as much silver as possible.
Therefore, she directed the tea masters in Lin’an to produce the sprinkled-surface tea.
For this batch of tea that appeared to be of particularly high quality and tasted very good, she planned to wholesale it to the court at fifteen taels per jin. The court would sell it to the Great Jin for at least double that price.
Ye Yaming pointed to the tea on the shelves and said, “These tea bricks each weigh one jin, excluding the packaging weight. When you check the samples, besides tasting them, please also check the weight. If there are no discrepancies, you can simply count the number of tea bricks without weighing them again.”
“Of course, you’re welcome to weigh them if you wish. The tea will only weigh more, never less.”
Chen Zhen nodded: “Madam Lu is very thoughtful. I trust Madam Lu’s integrity. However, for official business, we still need to weigh them.”
With that, he cupped his hands and said, “I’m afraid we won’t be able to finish this work in a day or two. The rest of you don’t need to stay here; just leave a manager here, and you may go about your business.”