Summer had arrived, and the weather was growing increasingly hot. Shen Shaoguang began experimenting with various fruit drinks.
In this dynasty, "fruit drinks" primarily served medicinal and health purposes. It wasn't until the Song Dynasty that they evolved into everyday thirst-quenching beverages. The popular drinks of this era were cheese drinks, sugarcane juice, and of course, tea which was gradually gaining acceptance.
Cheese drinks were too thick and gamey, sugarcane juice too sweet, and tea with added salt, ginger, and other ingredients was simply indescribable. Shen Shaoguang decided to brew some refreshing summer drinks herself. Her first choice was sour plum soup, followed by jasmine tea and mung bean soup. Mint honey drink was also quite good.
Among these, Shen Shaoguang loved sour plum soup the most.
She boiled dark plums, hawthorns, dried tangerine peel, licorice root purchased from a medicinal drink shop, then added sugared osmanthus flowers. In her previous life, Shen Shaoguang had read in a famous scholar's book that osmanthus should be preserved with white sugar rather than honey. Trying it out, she found the flavor indeed more refreshing - the scholar truly knew his craft.
Though private ice storage was available in the market, the price was exorbitant. Shen Shaoguang couldn't bring herself to spend that much. Fortunately, the nunnery had a well, and chilling the drinks with well water made them quite palatable.
On such hot days, drinking the rich, sweet-and-sour chilled plum soup, Abbot Yuanjue praised it endlessly: "In the previous dynasty, there was a monk who created five-colored drinks - green drink from creeping euonymus leaves, red drink from certain roots, white drink from cheese, black drink from dark plum juice, and yellow drink from river cinnamon. While cheese drink is most well-known, others have tried imitating the rest. I've tasted several versions of dark plum juice, but none compare to yours."
Shen Shaoguang smiled. Of course - her recipe had a thousand years of improvements behind it.
She also brewed jasmine tea, mung bean soup, and mint honey drink for the abbot to sample, sharing her idea - to sell these at the Qujiang riverside during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Though a monastic, Yuanjue maintained a scholar's attitude of "not speaking of profit." She had initially been puzzled by Shen Shaoguang, a noblewoman, being so intent on running small stalls to earn money, but had grown accustomed to it. She offered advice: "Mung bean drink is too commonplace, not novel enough. Having too many varieties might actually diminish the appeal of your plum soup. In my opinion, just offer the plum drink and... perhaps the jasmine tea."
Shen Shaoguang felt her homemade jasmine tea wasn't very good - at least compared to the jasmine-scented tea from her previous life. While her plum drink captured about sixty to seventy percent of the modern sour plum soup's essence, her jasmine tea at best had a faint hint of the flavor - the delicate jasmine fragrance barely noticeable. Yet for some reason, it appealed to the abbot - perhaps its light, sweet freshness with a subtle bitterness resonated with refined scholarly tastes.
Considering Yuanjue as a seasoned connoisseur, Shen Shaoguang decided her suggestion was sound. She planned to prepare several large jars of sour plum soup with purchased ice for chilled drinks, and set up a tea stove to brew fresh jasmine tea as hot beverages.
Yuanjue clapped her hands in approval, impressed by the thoughtful planning - many discerning people still preferred hot tea in summer. Moreover, the jasmine tea looked beautiful when freshly brewed, with jasmine flowers floating atop the tea powder. The formerly profit-averse elder nun had now begun analyzing customer preferences and product positioning.What to sell for drinks was secondary; the main focus was the food. For the Dragon Boat Festival, zongzi was naturally the first choice. The usual sweet varieties like red date, honey date, red bean, and mung bean fillings went without saying. As for the savory staples—chicken zongzi, mushroom and lean pork zongzi, and egg yolk zongzi—it seemed only right to give the people of the Tang Dynasty a chance to broaden their culinary horizons.
When Shen Shaoguang first arrived at the Ye Ting, the Dragon Boat Festival soon followed. She was given two zongzi with undercooked rice and two red dates stuffed inside. At the time, she thought it was just the treatment of a slave—better than plain steamed buns, so why complain? Later, when her situation improved and she even worked in the imperial kitchens for a while, she realized that even the emperor only had two or three types of fillings, albeit better cooked. The worst part was their habit of drenching them in sugarcane syrup—just thinking about it made her throat feel sticky.
Additionally, since the Ai Wowo (Glutinous Rice Cake) had been a hit during the trial at the nunnery, Shen Shaoguang decided to prepare the fillings in advance and make some fresh Ai Wowo on-site.
Between gathering ingredients, hiring a cart, and preparing the food, it was a hectic process. Fortunately, the nunnery had a large stove, which Shen Shaoguang borrowed to cook the zongzi. The head cook and the other nuns also pitched in. They worked nonstop until late on the eve of the festival before everything was ready. The next morning, as soon as the city gates opened, Shen Shaoguang set off in a rented donkey cart loaded with ingredients and utensils, heading straight for Qujiang.
Chongxianfang was in the northwest of the city, while Qujiang was in the southeast—quite a distance apart. Yet when Shen Shaoguang arrived, she was still early enough to secure a prime spot for her stall. It was close to the riverbank, facing the main road, with a pavilion and covered walkway nearby for resting. A few towering trees provided shade, and there were even a couple of large rocks under them where people could sit and rest.
Shen Shaoguang silently praised her good luck and quickly set up the table and arranged her stall. By the time the pot for heating the zongzi started steaming and the kettle for boiling water began to hiss, she had already wrapped about twenty or thirty Ai Wowo. It wasn’t until then that more visitors began to arrive at Qujiang. The nobles in their luxurious carriages didn’t start trickling in until the sun was high in the sky.
There were other food vendors along the riverbank, but most carried baskets and peddled their goods by shouting along the streets. Few went to the lengths Shen Shaoguang did to set up a proper stall. Passersby couldn’t help but take a second look, and with more eyes came more customers.
The zongzi sold well. Upon hearing there were meat-filled ones, many open-minded Tang citizens were willing to give them a try. However, they still couldn’t compete with the visually appealing Ai Wowo or the refreshingly sweet and sour plum drink. Meanwhile, the refined jasmine tea, perhaps too niche or simply ill-suited as a hot beverage for summer, attracted little interest.
As Shen Shaoguang shaped the Ai Wowo, she worried about the ice she had bought that morning from the icehouse at no small expense. Despite being wrapped in layers of cotton padding inside a small chest, it was melting rapidly. At this rate, the last two barrels of plum drink might end up ice-less. Meanwhile, she half-listened to the idle chatter of passersby.Two scholars were chatting about the emperor's visit to the riverside to watch the dragon boat races, lamenting their "missed chance to behold the imperial countenance." Shen Shaoguang shared their regret—after all, the emperor would only watch the races from the pavilions of the royal Qujiang Villa, never strolling along the streets. If only those few encounters she'd had with the emperor in the palace could have happened here instead! Then she could have pulled off a publicity stunt by "accidentally" bumping into the head of state and created something like "Sage's Smoked Plum Drink" or "Imperial Ai Wowo," following the trend of dishes named after emperors like "Kangxi Fish Head" or "Qianlong's Roast Chicken."
The advertising pitch practically wrote itself: "While watching the dragon boat races, the emperor suddenly felt parched and noticed a roadside stall selling smoked plum drink... After drinking it, the summer heat vanished, leaving him refreshed and invigorated... As the Hanlin Academician's poem goes—" Shen Shaoguang choked up. Though she'd studied poetry for two years in the palace, she had no talent for it—her verses always ended up sounding like crude doggerel.
Though she didn't get to "coincidentally" meet the emperor, there were plenty of wealthy patrons seeking "rustic charm." For a ten-copper-bowl smoked plum drink, she filled a whole canteen for one customer and even threw in some ice chips—and received a solid two-tael silver ingot in return.
What exorbitantly priced plum drink! She could only wish for more such generous customers.
"What kind of fruit drink is this?" asked a military officer in polished boots and gleaming armor.
"It's smoked plum drink, with hawthorn and licorice, served over ice—perfect for beating the heat," Shen Shaoguang replied. Suddenly inspired, she added, "Would the gentleman care to try a complimentary bowl?"
The officer glanced at her and nodded. "Very well."
Shen Shaoguang handed him a bowl, which he downed in one gulp—then promptly decided to buy the entire remaining stock!
The officer sent soldiers to carry it all away. Shen Shaoguang generously used up her remaining ice and even sold them the storage jar at a fair price.
Before noon had even arrived, with the dragon boat races yet to begin, she had completely sold out one beverage. Calculating the profits, the plum drink alone had earned her nearly five to six thousand coins—almost two months' worth of pancake sales.
In high spirits, Shen Shaoguang turned to making more Ai Wowo, when she suddenly spotted a familiar face among a group of noble ladies in a nearby pavilion—Pang Erniang.
Author's Note:
① Inspired by Ye Guangqin's "Douzhi Ji"
② Based on "Records of the Great Cause," with modifications.
OpenNovel