Although Liu Haonian didn't fully understand, he still nodded in agreement. At this moment, Liu Haojia walked over quickly and said: "Brother, Brother Jinbao, Brother Yinbao, come here!"
When the three of them came closer, Liu Haojia took out three bags of loose silver that he had prepared and handed them to them and said: "Take these silvers, and then go to the market to buy brown sugar. Don't buy too much at one time, just buy one." About three or four kilograms is enough. And the three of you have to buy it separately. Don’t be too troublesome after buying it. Just go home and put it down before buying a second time. Don’t carry the brown sugar you bought to the next store!”
This brown sugar was what brown sugar was called at that time. Although the Liu family was in decline, they were still from a distinguished family, so they knew that they could afford this brown sugar. But Father Liu frowned when he heard Brown Tang's name, but he still waved his hands and said, "You three brothers just do as you are told!"
The three brothers took the money and set off without knowing why. Liu Haojia then changed into work clothes, pushed the wheelbarrow, picked up his tools and bags, and left home without knowing what to do.
By the time it was evening, Liu Haonian and the other three had gone out and returned many times and had spent all their money. There were also dozens of bags of lotus leaf bags wrapped in brown sugar piled up at home, weighing almost two hundred kilograms. While Liu Haonian and the three were resting, Liu Haojia also came back pushing a wheelbarrow. There were two big bags full of them tied to the wheel. I just didn't know what was in them?
After helping him unload the car, Liu Haonian opened his pocket and said in surprise: "Isn't this loess? What's the use of this stuff? We don't build walls at home!"
Liu Haojia waved his hand and said: "Don't worry about this, I have my own use!"
After finishing speaking, Liu Haojia commanded the three Liu Haonian brothers to circle around! Let Jinbao build a stove in the yard, and then let Yinbao soak the loess in water to make yellow mud soup. He and Liu Haonian unpacked the brown sugar, threw it into a large pot, added water and stirred to dissolve.
The stove was completed, and the large iron pot filled with brown sugar was placed on the stove and started to simmer over low heat. At this time, Father Liu took a step forward and said with a frown: "Xiaoer, are you planning to turn these brown sugar into white sugar?"
Liu Haojia was stunned for a moment, and then he was shocked! Is there already sugar at this time? His original intention was to make sugar to make huge profits, but now when Father Liu said it, he was naturally surprised!
Seeing his surprised look, Father Liu knew that he had guessed correctly. He sighed and said, "Xiaoer, you may not know about white sugar. Although it is rare, it is not unavailable on the market! It's just that it's all sold by those Xungui and wealthy families bought it, but it is rarely circulated in the market!"
Many people think that white sugar only appeared in the early Qing Dynasty. In fact, this is not the case. The first time white sugar appeared was in the late Yuan Dynasty! According to "Quanzhou Prefecture Chronicles" written by Chen Shi, there was a sugar craftsman named Huang in Nan'an County, Quanzhou Prefecture in the Yuan Dynasty. When he was making sugar, his adobe house suddenly collapsed, causing the syrup to be mixed with loess. After cleaning up the house, he discovered that white frosting appeared in the syrup mixed with loess. This made the craftsman discover the secret of brown sugar decolorization.
Sugar craftsmen invented the mud-covering method based on this situation. It is covered with lumps of yellow mud on the syrup. Later, the technology was gradually improved and became the yellow mud decolorization method, which was also recorded in the book "Tiangong Kaiwu"! Also comes with illustrations!
In fact, the history of edible sugar in China is quite long, but there has never been much technological development. After people discovered the technology of brown sugar decolorization, due to confidentiality reasons, this technology was not promoted on a large scale at all! A small number of people who have mastered the technology of decolorizing brown sugar have been passing this method down as a family secret recipe, which is unknown to outsiders.
At that time, sugar was relatively expensive, and ordinary people rarely ate sugar at home. Even if I eat sugar, it is just maltose and the like, and I rarely eat brown sugar directly. As for wealthy families, more people consume honey and decolorized white sugar. In addition, the production of white sugar is scarce, and it is bought by these people as soon as it comes on the market. Therefore, ordinary people cannot see the circulation of white sugar at all in the market. This makes Liu Haojia thought it would be profitable to make sugar by himself.
Liu Haojia knew that his father would not lie to him, so he asked with a glimmer of hope: "Then what does the sugar you are talking about look like? Have you seen it?"
Father Liu sighed again and said: "Our family is noble after all, and we have seen some good things before! There is no difference between those white sugars and these brown sugars, but they are looser than brown sugars! Those brown sugars always stick together. It’s a lump, and the white sugar is like grains of sand, and it may not taste as sweet as brown sugar!”
When Liu Haojia heard this, she secretly exclaimed that she was lucky! Fortunately, I had made extra preparations, otherwise, my great career of making money would really have been aborted! Of course, this is also my fault for being short-sighted! So he calmed down and said with a mysterious smile: "Father guessed half of it right, you will know the rest if you take your time!"
When Father Liu heard what Liu Haojia said, he could only nod doubtfully and let him go. But in his heart, he had already sentenced the money he spent to death! But fortunately, he felt that he could still afford the loss, so he followed Liu Haojia to do it himself, just as spending money to teach him a lesson!
At this time, Liu Haojia saw that the syrup was almost cooked, so he put the earthen jar in place, placed the tile slide with the funnel on it, and then filled the bottom outlet with straw. By the time he finished all this, the syrup had been completely boiled, and the thick syrup had a very tempting sweet smell!
The four brothers poured the syrup into several tiles, and soon the tiles were filled with the thick syrup. When the syrup solidified, he pulled out the straw from under the tiles. Then Liu Haojia carefully poured the mixed yellow mud into the tiles, and then observed the changes in the tiles.
Slowly, as the yellow color gradually sinks, the exposed syrup crystals are indeed white sugar! Seeing that the original dark brown sugar gradually turned into snow-white white sugar, Liu Guangyuan and the others were extremely excited, and they even praised Liu Haojia for his good craftsmanship! But Father Liu shook his head and went back to his room to rest, out of sight and out of mind!
Liu Haojia and the others worked until midnight to convert all the brown sugar into white sugar. In the end, the syrup mixed with mud could not be purified without subsequent raw materials, so it had to be stored separately in earthen jars. The prepared white sugar was also stored separately, and Liu Haojia gave everyone a handful to satisfy their cravings, which made Liu Haonian and others very happy!
