Chapter 154: The east is bright, and the west is also bright
Next door to Zhenzhai is Zichengji. Zhang Xinjue, the person in charge of Wushuang Liquor, which is currently the flagship product of this brand, has too much more wine than glass bottles, so he has to put it in a big wine jar and wait for Lingao. More bottles are coming out.
However, the sake brewers never stopped for a moment and were processing the earthenware purchased from various places every day. So much so that the price of Guangzhou's earth-baked dishes has begun to rise slowly.
When Guo Yizhen found that Zichengji's liquor inventory had exceeded 25 tons, he was shocked and asked Zhang Xin: There are not so many glass bottles now, what is the use of making so much wine?
"Of course we sold it." Zhang Xin's plan was simple. Since glass bottle wine is a luxury product, he would package it in simple porcelain bottles and sell it to foreigners in Macau.
"You're just kidding," Guo Yi said, "How big is the population of Macau? How much can it afford? Besides, Europeans can also make fruit shochu. Do they like this grain shochu?"
"Shopkeeper Guo, you don't understand this." Zhang Xin chuckled, "Foreigners also have food to make liquor, but not vodka? There is also gin. Vodka is pure alcohol mixed with water. It is not difficult to make. Juniper berries are not a rare thing, they are found everywhere in the northern hemisphere, we just need to get some and distill them."
"But the market is too small! The population of Macau"
"This is the secret," Zhang Xin said confidently. "Foreigners have glass, and it becomes a rarity when it is transported thousands of miles to China. Our Chinese porcelain becomes a rarity when it arrives in Europe."
"I understand." Guo Yi suddenly said, "So you said you want to use a porcelain wine bottle!"
"The clay-fired glass bottle in the countryside is the 'Guo Shi Wushuang'; if you put it in the porcelain wine bottle, it becomes the 'Louis XIII': the mysterious porcelain from the mysterious East and the mysterious wine... How wonderful is this? Commercial gimmick.”
Porcelain was the bulk of the supplies seized from Gou. At that time, it was estimated that there were tens of thousands of items. Obviously there is no market for so much porcelain in Da Ming. The only way is to continue selling to the original European owners. Among the goods recently shipped to Dengzhou are many porcelain samples. I was originally planning to send it to Macau to see if there was any demand. Zhang Xinzai accidentally came up with the idea of using porcelain vases to hold wine. He chose a vase with a capacity of about 6 to 7o1 as the packaging bottle. There are at least ten thousand bottles of this kind in the inventory.
With a wine bottle. There are other open projects. Nowadays, there is no activated carbon in the hands of everyone. Making vodka is obviously a no-go. But if you steam it with some spices, you can still make wine. It's the so-called sweet wine. In theory. This kind of wine can be made from fruits, spices, flowers, or even plants with special aromas. Because there are so many objects to choose from. Zhang Xin hesitated. So I sent a telegram to professionals in Lingao for advice.
"What spice plants are used to make export wine?" This topic was brought to Fa Shilu's table. This botanical expert is leading several students who have initially shown an interest in botany to concentrate on making specimens of the collected local plants.
When I heard this question. There was a look behind Fa Shilu's glasses that said, "Finally, I've waited for it."
"This is easy. Just use rhubarb."
"Are you kidding?" Zhang Xin thought he was crazy when he received the call back. What is rhubarb? I took laxatives for diarrhea. Get this distilled liquor out. Call it a prank. After a person suffers a loss, will he be fooled a second time?
"No kidding." Fa Shilu gave a detailed explanation in his reply:
Rhubarb is a commonly used medicine in traditional Chinese medicine. Its origin is in the northwest and southwest of China. It may be the medicinal experience of the people in the Western Regions, and later spread to the inland. It has been used as medicine for at least two to three thousand years.
Since Zhang opened the Silk Road for trade between China and Europe in the Western Regions, rhubarb was transported by caravans to West Asia and Europe via the Silk Road. Camel caravans transported dried rhubarb from China and crossed the mountains to Central Asia. After Bukhara, they came to Europe via the Black Sea. Because it reached Europe through Asia Minor, it was later named Turkish rhubarb. Rhubarb was once a very important commodity in Silk Road trade.
In later days, Central Asian merchants operated a prosperous rhubarb trade route through Persia and other parts of the Middle East. By the Ming Dynasty, two rhubarb trade routes had been formed from China: one took the sea route through India, and the other passed through the Gobi Desert and Siberia to Moscow. Rhubarb also accounts for a large proportion of Macao’s re-export trade goods operated by the Portuguese.
Rhubarb has long been a favorite of Persian and Arab doctors. Since the Middle Ages, the rhubarb trade has flourished on the Silk Road for more than a thousand years. Rhubarb can strengthen the stomach and detoxify. People who eat meat and milk as their staple food relied on Chinese rhubarb before they knew how to drink tea. They regarded it as a panacea that could cure all diseases. Therefore, rhubarb has been one of the most in-demand commodities in Central Asia, West Asia and even Europe for more than a thousand years. due to allah
effects, rhubarb was widely used in European medicine. Depending on how you master it, it can be used as a laxative to treat constipation, an astringent to treat illnesses and diarrhea, and a medicine to treat burns, acne, and ~.
Later, Europeans also developed edible rhubarb, which can be used in various snacks and dishes, and even eaten as fruit. But until today, rhubarb for medicinal purposes can only be grown in China. Rhubarb has such a high status in the hearts of Europeans that there are rhubarb festivals in many places around the world. This medicine is so popular abroad, which is probably difficult to imagine in China, the country where rhubarb originates.
"My dear, I thought it was a laxative. I didn't expect foreigners to think of it as a treasure." Zhang Xin said to Guo Yi after reading the telegram, "Hurry up and send someone to the market to buy rhubarb. This thing can also be used as an export commodity. Woolen cloth."
Guo Yi quickly sent someone to the market to inquire about rhubarb, and found that rhubarb had already been exported under a special brand name. Rhubarb is mainly produced in Qinghai and Gansu in China, with Li County as the distribution center. The business of exporting to the Macao Portuguese in Guangdong is monopolized by a "Shuihao" warehouse run by people from Li County.
Although he felt that this way of making money was being robbed, it was a bit disappointing, but making rhubarb wine was definitely not popular. Zhang Xin asked people to secretly collect a large amount of rhubarb from various drug stores, and washed and dried it overnight.
Traditional Chinese medicinal wines basically use the soaking method, but Zhang Xin decided to use alcohol distillation like gin.
Put the chopped rhubarb on the distillation rack, pass the steam of the wine through the distillation rack, and finally recover it through the serpentine condenser. Finally, a liquid with a slightly yellow color and a fragrant smell is distilled. Finally, according to Xue Ziliang's suggestion, an appropriate amount of melted sugar was added to the wine. The taste is slightly sweet, and now it feels like rhubarb liqueur.
As for the distilled rhubarb residue, Zhang Xin asked people to dry it, seal it and store it. He planned to use this raw material to make rhubarb tea bags. Since black tea powder can make black tea bags that are regarded as "fashionable" by Chinese petty bourgeoisie, then the same The nature of rhubarb tea can also make Europeans flock to it.
The labels on the porcelain wine bottles were unsightly. After discussion among several people at the dispatch station, Yan Maoda designed and ordered a batch of antique small ivory tags at an ivory carving shop. They were strung with colorful brocade ropes and hung on the bottles. The ivory tags were traditional The pattern and trademark are "Princess of the Tang Dynasty". This vulgar name made everyone unanimously despise Zhang Xin. Zhang Xin said:
"You talk about something elegant, such as Roselle. Do foreigners understand? Look at the famous wines in France. They are either Napoleon or Louis XIII. Isn't that more vulgar? I haven't called them Kangxi or Yongzheng yet. , where is Qianlong."
"No, you are your Princess of the Tang Dynasty." Guo Yi said with a smile, "As long as she is not a noble person like Lan."
"Lan Guiren? This is a good idea, but foreigners don't know the hierarchy of wives in China and can't tell the difference. If you want to use it on domestic brands in the future, you can also create a series of brands."
The Princess of Tang Dynasty and Guoshi Wushuangjiu are being processed intensively, and the craftsmen recruited by Shen Fan have also arrived. When Bao Hengxiang collapsed, although the boss paid wages, the craftsmen were paid meager wages on weekdays and did not have much savings. When they were worried about their future after the New Year, Shen Fan's timely recruitment was like a timely rain, which was very important to the new owner. Very grateful. Yan Maoda comforted everyone again, saying that the treatment was favorable and everyone could continue to work with peace of mind. Now each person received another two hundred dollars as a new year's profit. Then he took out the decorative album he had drawn and asked the craftsmen to express their opinions.
To his surprise, the craftsmen held objections to most of the modern decorations painted by Yan Maoda. They thought that these decorations were good-looking, but the quality was too thin and the weight was not enough to please him. Yan Maoda spent a long time trying not to convince them. It seems that their opinions still need to be adjusted to a certain extent.
Although the craftsmen do not agree with Shopkeeper Yan's design, he is the boss after all. It is the boss's right to do whatever he wants, so everyone can just follow suit. Originally, there were some craftsmen who were afraid that the shop would shut down sooner or later after so much effort. After seeing the samples of Zizhenzhai, the craftsmen came to the consensus that with such good secret glassware, Shopkeeper Yan can do whatever he likes.
Some people have also put forward some additional processing suggestions for glassware. For example, a decorator named Zhu Shengyi suggested that the handles and rims of some glass cups can be inlaid with gold and silver rims, and some small floral decorations can be added to make them More gorgeous. Yan Maoda also disagreed with such a suggestion. In his opinion, it was a vulgar behavior that destroyed the beauty of glassware, but he still expressed his appreciation for it. Creativity should be encouraged, rather than stifled because of different opinions from his own. Furthermore, their Aesthetics should be more adaptable to this time and space than one's own
