Watching Shen Xuan prepare the tea cleanly and meticulously, and seeing that the ingredients seemed to be genuinely high quality, the students who had been observing earlier rushed forward, eager to taste the Honey Scholar Tea.
A long queue quickly formed in front of Shen Xuan's stall, almost overwhelming him. He had to ask Brother Liu and his friends to explore elsewhere for a bit and promised to treat them to a meal at Daiyue Tower once he was done.
"One Tieguanyin Honey Scholar Tea."
"Two Biluochun Honey Scholar Teas."
"Another Jasmine Honey Scholar Tea."
***
Many people came to buy tea all at once, so Shen Xuan decided to make many cups simultaneously.
He collected payment one by one, letting each person take their cup. Soon, within just one hour of lunchtime, Shen Xuan had sold over seventy cups out of the two hundred he had prepared.
At this point, the afternoon class bell rang at Lezhou Academy, and students returned to their studies, finally giving Shen Xuan's stall a moment of peace.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a long sigh. After being so busy, he hadn't had time to eat, and his stomach was rumbling.
Shen Xuan quickly put all his items back into the stall cart and parked the cart in Widow Ge's courtyard.
Although he had started late that morning, earning seven hundred wen right away was a good start. He felt particularly grateful to Brother Liu for bringing people to support him, so he quickly rushed to Daiyue Tower.
He had promised to treat Brother Liu and his friends to a meal, and he couldn't be late.
Daiyue Tower was one of the high-end restaurants on Jinli Street. Unlike Guiyun Tower, which was frequented by literati and scholars, Daiyue Tower didn't host yajis.
(t/n : yajis" (雅集) refers to elegant gatherings or literati gatherings in traditional Chinese culture.)
Its clientele included many women and Ger. Brother Liu and his friends had reserved a seat by the window on the second floor and had been waiting for Shen Xuan for a while.
As soon as Shen Xuan arrived, he quickly ordered a table of dishes from the waiter: steamed perch, braised lamb, emerald meatball soup, home-style tofu, and stir-fried greens. This meal cost two hundred wen, which was a very respectable spread.
Shen Xuan was about to order a pot of good tea as well, but Brother Liu and his friends stopped him.
Brother Wen, being straightforward, spoke bluntly despite being in someone else's establishment.
"Don't waste money. The good tea here costs a hundred wen a pot, and it's not as good as the tea you make."
Shen Xuan was somewhat embarrassed by the praise and could only invite them to drink his tea again another day.
Brother Liu and his friends didn't stand on ceremony, simply saying, "Of course we'll come again! But your business is already so good on your first day; you might be too busy in the future. If we come next time, we don't know if there'll be any for us to drink. Just remember to save a cup for us."
Shen Xuan felt they were exaggerating greatly but quickly promised he wouldn't forget their cups. After the group finished lunch, Shen Xuan hurried back to Widow Ge's house and pushed out his stall cart.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he set up the stall, someone immediately approached. The same male attendant who had bought three cups of tea earlier returned, anxiously holding one hundred twenty wen and handing it to Shen Xuan.
"Young brother, you're back! I've been waiting for ages! Give me four more cups of each of those three tea flavors."
"Alright, I'll make them right away!" Shen Xuan was stunned. This was a big customer! He had just bought twelve cups of tea all at once!
So, after collecting the copper coins, he immediately washed his hands and started making the tea. After a while, all twelve cups were ready.
The male attendant then said to him, "I can't carry this many teas alone; could you help me deliver them?"
"Okay, no problem." Shen Xuan quickly asked Widow Ge to watch his tea stall for him, then he and the male attendant each carried six cups of tea and entered the academy.
It was his first time entering Lezhou Academy. Normally, only male students and teachers were allowed inside. Ger and women were not permitted.
However, Shen Xuan was wearing a headscarf and looked no different from a man, so the guards at the entrance couldn't tell he was a Ger. Seeing him follow the male attendant, they let him in.
Lezhou Academy had four courtyards in total. The entrance led to a vestibule, and after passing through a garden, one would reach the students' study areas.
At this time, it was the break between two classes. The teachers weren't inside, and many students were gathered, chatting and boasting.
Among them was a young gentleman of seventeen or eighteen, who was different from the other students in scholar robes.
He was dressed entirely in silk and satin, with a golden lock around his neck and two imperial green jade twin fish pendants at his waist. Even his hair ornament was made of fine white jade.
This young nobleman was Xiao Jue, the only son of the wealthy Xiao family, who specialized in jade business in Lezhou City.
Because old Master Xiao had only gained this son in his later years, he doted on him immensely. He would often spend hundreds of taels on pocket money, and he was accustomed to treating others in this academy.
At this moment, he was telling the students gathered around him about Shen Xuan's Honey Scholar Tea.
"I just tasted that tea; not only is the name auspicious, but the taste is also better than the tea at Daiming House. So I sent someone to buy a few more cups for you all to try something new."
"Young Master, your Honey Scholar Tea has arrived," the male attendant quickly stepped forward and placed the tea on the table in front of him.
Shen Xuan followed his movement and set down the teas he was carrying.
"Come and try it, this is what I was talking about, Honey Scholar Tea," Xiao Jue said. The students around him then looked at the greenish-blue bamboo cups on the table.
"This is the Honey Scholar Tea you mentioned?" One student with a long face, a descendant of the prominent Yi family in Lezhou, usually attended school with Xiao Jue but felt a certain disdain for merchants like him.
Seeing the bamboo cups, he said, "Look at these cups. They're just made from bamboo nodes, and their shape is quite rough. They don't look very appealing. I usually don't dare to eat from those street stalls, for fear that those common folk are unclean and messy, and their food isn't hygienic, leading to illness."
These words were quite disrespectful to Xiao Jue, causing his expression to change immediately.
Shen Xuan happened to be right there, and upon hearing this person criticize his tea, he quickly spoke up, "This young master seems to be prejudiced. Street stalls can also be clean and meticulous, and high-end establishments can also be unsanitary. One cannot generalize. Whether food is clean or not depends on the person preparing it. Take the back kitchens of those large restaurants, for example. Young masters, you've never seen them, so how do you know if they're clean? If you hire a cook who doesn't like cleanliness, and doesn't wash their hands after using the privy, and then cooks for you, you wouldn't even know. It might even be better than those small street stalls, where whether it's clean or not is plainly laid out before your eyes, allowing young masters to judge for yourselves."
As Shen Xuan suddenly spoke, the students' gazes fell upon him. The male attendant beside them quickly spoke up for his young master,
"This is the stall owner of Honey Scholar Tea. I've observed his stall for a long time. He always washes his hands before making tea, and the tea itself is quite clean. You can drink it with confidence."
Shen Xuan thought to himself that this male attendant was clever and that their cooperation was excellent.
He then added, "As for my tea being served in these bamboo cups, it's precisely because these cups are low-cost and can be given to guests along with the tea, without needing to be reused repeatedly. Each person uses it once, which makes it much cleaner and more hygienic."
"That's true, these cups haven't been used by anyone else before, so they are indeed cleaner and more meticulous than reusable porcelain cups," a student said, nodding in agreement after hearing this, and picked up a cup of tea from the table.
Shen Xuan was already handsome, and now dressed in new clothes, with his hair neatly combed and clean fingernails, he looked like a clean and meticulous person at a glance.
So, the other students no longer paid attention to Young Master Yi's words, but instead picked up the tea on the table and drank it.
As the tea entered their mouths, their eyes lit up, and they praised it with great surprise: "This tea has a special flavor; it's exceptionally refreshing and leaves a lingering fragrance in your mouth and teeth."
"This tea is sweet and sour, with a unique taste, and it's very thirst-quenching. Just one cup makes you feel a gentle breeze under your armpits."
"They're all sweet and sour, but I think this Honey Scholar Tea is much better than the sour plum soup on Jinli Street. My cup must be jasmine tea; its rich jasmine fragrance is truly amazing."
These students were cultivated individuals, and their praises flowed eloquently, much more so than Brother Liu and his friends.
Shen Xuan felt somewhat embarrassed listening to them praise his Honey Scholar Tea to the heavens. However, the host, Xiao Jue, was quite pleased, and seeing Young Master Yi's face turn ashen, he felt even more smug, having exacted revenge for the earlier disrespect.
He called his male attendant closer and whispered a few words to him. A moment later, the male attendant escorted Shen Xuan out of the academy.
Upon reaching the gate, he took out a money pouch and handed it to Shen Xuan, saying, "You performed well today and brought honor to our young master. This is a reward from Young Master Xiao."
The pouch likely contained "tips" from Young Master Xiao. Shen Xuan weighed it and found it quite heavy. However, since he had helped Young Master Xiao out of a tricky situation, this reward wasn't unearned, so he happily accepted it.
After returning to his stall, Shen Xuan quietly opened the pouch and poured out two silver ingots, each probably weighing around five taels.
A ten-taels silver tip in one go! Shen Xuan was surprised and happily put the silver away. He hadn't expected selling tea could bring such extra income.
However, this extra income wasn't long-term; he primarily needed to earn money from the tea itself. Shen Xuan continued to man his stall. After shenshi (3-5 PM), the academy dismissed classes. Another wave of students emerged, leading to more sales. This time, Shen Xuan sold over sixty cups of tea in just half an hour, leaving only fifty empty cups. Most of the academy students had left, and hardly anyone else was buying.
Seeing that it was getting late, Shen Xuan packed up his stall early. After going to Widow Ge to arrange for water for the next day, he purchased one hundred fifty empty bamboo cups and brought them back.
He still stored the bamboo cups at Widow Ge's house, then drove his mule cart away. On this first day of business, he sold one hundred fifty cups of tea, earning one thousand five hundred wen (not counting the ten taels silver tip from Young Master Xiao), which was actually very good.
It's important to remember that the tea business is a slow and steady stream of income. After deducting today's costs, Shen Xuan earned over one guan (a string of 1000 wen) in one day.
If he worked twenty days a month, he could easily net over twenty taels of silver. For comparison, a small house with three courtyards in Lezhou City's South City only cost around three hundred taels.
An annual income of two hundred taels of silver was already considered upper-class among Lezhou City residents, not to mention compared to the villagers in Yunshui Village.
This was the advantage of doing high-end business. While costs were higher, it was less strenuous and earned more. If he were in the South City, where customers could only afford one wen per bowl, selling two hundred bowls a day would only bring in two hundred wen.
Even if he worked every day, a full month would only yield six guan, which was much more tiring than selling tea on Jinli Street.
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