Ye Yaming remained silent and looked toward Ye Chongming.

Ye Chongming pointed to Ye Jiaxing and said with a smile, “This is my eldest grandson Ye Jiaxing. He will accompany you, gentlemen, here. If you need anything, just ask him. I know you gentlemen have matters to attend to, so we won’t keep you any longer. We’ll take our leave now.”

This was their first black tea transaction with the Jin Dynasty, and they couldn’t afford any mistakes. When sampling tea, one could typically select one or two tea bricks from each shelf, open them to look and smell, break off a piece to brew and taste, and then break open the entire brick for inspection.

If done hastily, this work could be completed in a day. If done meticulously, it would take two days.

But Chen Zhen and his men dared not be careless. They stayed at the tea factory for four days, taking many more samples for inspection and keeping detailed records before finally concluding their work.

Ye Jiaxing returned home to report, and Ye Yaming and the others went to the post station where Chen Zhen’s group was staying.

On the way, Ye Chongming anxiously asked, “How was their mood these past few days? They didn’t say there was anything wrong with our tea, did they?”

He had been on edge the whole time, fearing that Chen Zhen and his men might find the tea unsatisfactory.

This was the Ye family’s first such large transaction with the imperial court, and they couldn’t afford even the slightest mistake.

Because the old man was so nervous, Ye Jiaxing had to report the situation to his grandfather every day when he returned home.

Understanding his grandfather’s concerns, he replied without any impatience, “Very good. Master Chen and the others even praised us, saying our tea has a remarkably consistent flavor—all equally excellent.”

“They also said that although the tea leaves came from three different places—Lin’an, Huizhou, and Minzhou—and were processed by so many different tea masters working together, the flavor remained consistent, which they found truly impressive.”

Ye Chongming breathed a huge sigh of relief, his face breaking into a smile.

“All thanks to your sister. She is truly remarkable,” he praised sincerely.

Previously, Ye Hongsheng had maintained decent quality control in tea production, but that was when the quantity was small—just a fraction of the current 150,000 catties.

Even then, Ye Hongsheng had to stay at the tea factory day and night, even eating and sleeping there, keeping his eyes on everything, working with his own hands, and tasting with his mouth from the beginning of production until the end. He would labor for months, losing several catties of weight in the process, just to maintain such consistent quality.

Ye Yaming, however, had a hands-off approach. She had trained a batch of tea masters last year and then sent them to Huizhou and Minzhou to produce tea. She supervised only the more complex craft of making sprinkled-surface tea.

Although she had established a tea evaluation system and dispatched specially trained “tea assessors” with sensitive palates to conduct inspections, Ye Chongming had still been extremely anxious.

Without personal supervision, and with tea masters who weren’t particularly experienced, what if the tea showed too much variation?

This was business with the imperial court, and the tea was to be sold to the Jin Dynasty. If anything went wrong, it would affect diplomatic relations between the two countries. If the imperial court assigned blame, the entire family would be fortunate just to keep their lives. As a main participant, Ye Yaming wouldn’t escape punishment, and Lu Guanyi would lose his official position as well.

Ye Yaming had always appeared confident and composed, but Ye Chongming lacked the expertise himself and had no choice but to trust her. After reminding Ye Yaming a few times, he could only let it be. But his heart remained suspended with worry.

When the tea from Huizhou and Minzhou arrived, Ye Yaming evaluated it and told him the quality was stable, telling him not to worry. Though his mind was somewhat calmer, he still couldn’t be completely at ease.

During these days, he couldn’t eat or sleep well, fearing that Chen Zhen and his men might say something negative. Even when Ye Jiaxing told him the evaluation was favorable, he couldn’t relax until the sample inspection was completed.

Now, he could finally put his heart back in his stomach.

Ye Hongrong had gone to Huizhou for inspection, so Ye Jiaxing had been running errands during this period, and he understood his grandfather’s psychological journey best. Not just Ye Chongming, but he had also been on tenterhooks.

This spring, when the Longjing tea made by those tea merchants who had bought the tea methods in Lin’an came to market, they had bought samples to taste. The flavors might not have been drastically different, but each had its characteristics.

Ye Jiaxing immediately went to ask Ye Hongsheng, who told him: “We took their money and taught them the most authentic methods, doing our utmost without holding anything back. If their tea isn’t right, it can only mean these people didn’t practice diligently afterward and forgot what I taught them.”

But Ye Yaming’s black tea masters had only learned from her once before being dispatched to other regions. There had been no opportunity for practice, since there were no fresh leaves in winter.

So how had she managed to get these tea masters to produce tea with such consistent flavor?

Seeing Ye Yaming, he couldn’t help but ask, “Third Sister, how did you ensure that all the tea masters produced tea with such consistent flavor?”

“It’s very simple—standardization. Every step was standardized,” Ye Yaming replied.

In modern times, machines are used to make tea.

Although old tea connoisseurs might say machine-made tea lacks the “soul” of handmade tea, machine-made tea doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t fail, and maintains stable quality.

Ye Yaming naturally couldn’t build machines, but she could establish rigid operations and standards, and have people create simplified versions of testing instruments to conduct measurements, making manual operations as regulated and precise as chemical experiments, approaching machine standards as much as possible.

Moreover, these operations weren’t performed by a single person but by groups of three who supervised each other and made mutual corrections.

This greatly reduced the error rate.

With the addition of tea assessors conducting evaluations on this foundation, the consistency of tea quality could be guaranteed.

This batch of black tea didn’t need to be exceptionally good—quality control was the key.

Not just this batch, but every batch in future years needed to meet the same standards to establish the Ye family tea brand.

As for the tea masters sent by the various tea merchants in Lin’an, after returning and spending a winter, they had forgotten parts of the Longjing tea-making method they had learned. They had incorporated their own understanding during this period, and some had even improvised, making their own “creative operations,” resulting in Longjing tea with “unique characteristics.”

Of course, there were good ones too, like Qin Sixiang, who could not only maintain the original tea flavor but even enhance it. This was truly a rare talent.

Watching Chen Zhen and his men transport the tea away, not only Ye Chongming but also Ye Yaming breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Until the goods were delivered, they had been carrying a burden of worry, fearing something might go wrong.

As soon as they left, Ye Yaming had the leisure to ask Lu’E: “Go ask Ma Yun about the situation of Qin Sixiang’s family since they came to our place. If he knows, have him come report.”

Her pregnancy had been difficult, and since Qin Sixiang’s family had been brought to the Ye household, she hadn’t had the energy to attend to this matter. It was Ye Chongming and Ye Hongsheng who had settled them.

However, Ye Yaming had instructed Ma Yun to have people keep a close eye on Qin Sixiang, to observe his character and whether he was content staying with the Ye family.