Chapter 10: Brewing Sencha (2)
Chu Lian looked down and abruptly felt like pouting. For a modern foodie like her, who had eaten everything on both sides of the Yangtze River 1, these square-shaped pumpkin pastries didn’t attract her at all. They had just scattered a few peach blossom petals on top, did they really think these pastries were beautiful? Did Xiyan have any sense of aesthetics at all?
The smell of vegetable oil wafted up from the pumpkin pastries, bombarding her nose with the choke-worthy stench of grease.
Chu Lian couldn’t help but wonder if the senior servants in charge of the kitchen had been ordered by someone to make life difficult for her.
She tried to recall her memories, but it didn’t seem like there had been an event like this in the novel.
Xiyan’s expectant gaze was too much for her to bear, so Chu Lian picked up a piece of pumpkin pastry and tasted it.
She couldn’t taste any pumpkin at all. Instead, it was like eating a spoonful of sugar, saturating her tongue until all she wanted to do was down a cup of tea and forget it had ever gone into her mouth in the first place.
This…
Chu Lian forced herself to finish one piece, but that was it. She had completely lost the will to pick up another.
The House of Count Jing’an was an aristocratic family at the very least; did they really eat these kinds of pastries at home?
Chu Lian was starting to feel sick from the obnoxious sweetness, so she didn’t even look at the tea that Fuyan had just poured and simply drank it in one gulp.
However, the second the tea hit her tongue, Chu Lian’s eyes widened and she spat it all out, completely discarding her image.
Her personal maidservants were horrified, they thought that something had happened to Chu Lian.
“Third Young Madam, what happened? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?”
Xiyan, who was her usual server and had never seen anything like this happen before, was about to burst into tears.
Chu Lian placed the teacup back on the table. She even spat a few times before finally getting the weird taste of a mix of spring onions, ginger, garlic and other herbs off her tongue.
“Bring me some plain water, quick!”
When Xiyan heard Chu Lian’s orders, she hurriedly poured a cup of warm water and passed it over.
Chu Lian had learned her lesson. She stared carefully into the celadon teacup in front of her to make sure that it was really just clear warm water, before drinking it down without any qualms.
After washing away that weird taste in her mouth, she finally let out a comfortable sigh.
“What did you pour into that teacup?” Once she had recovered her breath, Chu Lian felt a sense of urgency. Why were there spring onions, ginger, garlic, cinnamon powder, and all other kinds of seasonings in there?
“It’s sencha, 2Third Young Madam. Isn’t it your favourite?” Xiyan blinked, her eyes slightly red. She passed the handkerchief in her hands to Chu Lian to wipe her mouth with.
Sencha! That’s right, she finally remembered. In ancient China, when tea culture had just started to become popular, it was sencha that was in vogue. However, she couldn’t have imagined that it was sencha that was popular in the fictional Great Wu Dynasty…
The sencha of this era was completely different from the sencha of the modern era. Perhaps it was because sencha had just come in fashion recently here, so there weren’t any special rules to it. They just put all sorts of seasonings into the tea to boil. Once it was done, they would use a special tool to whip up froth in the tea. Some highly skilled connoisseurs would even add drawings on top of the froth, similar to the latte art drawn on cappuccinos in modern cafes.
However, this strange taste couldn’t be compared to coffee at all.
She had been a little nervous during the tea ceremony this morning, so Chu Lian hadn’t even noticed what the tea was like.
Chu Lian waved Xiyan and Fuyan away. As an excuse, she could only say, “My appetite hasn’t been faring well these two days, so I want to eat something light. Don’t serve this sencha in the future; plain water is fine.”
Upon hearing this, Xiyan was like an anxious little bird. “Third Young Madam, how can that be? Brewing sencha is your specialty! You have to show off your skills in the future! You can’t stop drinking sencha!”
That’s right, sencha was growing in popularity by the day in the Great Wu Dynasty. Many young ladies in aristocratic families would specially learn how to brew it. The more flavourful the sencha and the more beautiful the posture of the brewer, the more they would be praised as elegant and noble ladies.
Once Xiyan had spoken, Chu Lian recalled how the novel had mentioned that the female lead had been quite good at brewing sencha. When Duke Ying had invited guests over, he had specially summoned her to brew some for them.
Right now, it wasn’t that easy to be a noble lady in the Great Wu Dynasty. They had to have some skills that could wow an audience.
Sixth Miss Chu wasn’t favoured in the Ying Household. Her other skills were average compared to the other ladies in the estate. Brewing sencha was the only skill she could boast of. No wonder Xiyan had been so anxious upon hearing that Chu Lian was going to stop drinking it.
Unfortunately, the current Chu Lian was no longer the same as before. Even if she drank sencha by the bucketloads, she didn’t know how to brew it.
Furthermore, in her honest opinion, the sencha of this era tasted terrible. Even if she knew how to brew it like they did, she would feel bad for making anyone drink it. The nonsensical mixture of seasonings could easily kill someone someday, and when that happened, Chu Lian did not want to be that someone, or the cause of that someone’s death.
“Alright, I only said that I wouldn’t drink it from now on. I didn’t say that I would stop brewing.” Chu Lian could only gloss over the matter like this. She wasn’t the original female lead. Although she was the mistress of these maidservants, she couldn’t change her behaviour too much all of a sudden.
The maidservants fell for her false reassurances and let out sighs of relief.
Chu Lian held her forehead in her hands.
Fuyan’s eyes darted around before her gaze landed on that golden, drool-worthy pastry on the table. She gulped in secret. It really was like how Xiyan had said. They had never eaten such beautiful pastries back at the Ying Estate!
“Third Young Madam, what do you think of these pastries?”
Chu Lian had suffered too much of a shock from the sencha, to the point that she had almost forgotten about the pastries that had made her drink it in the first place. She shook her head in disappointment. “The taste is average. It’s too sweet and greasy. Take one for yourselves and try it.”
Chu Lian simply wanted to test the tastebuds of the people from this era. Xiyan and Fuyan had been serving the female lead for a long time. They probably knew the tastes of the female lead the best. Letting them try the pastries was the best way to find out what she was supposed to like.
When the four personal maidservants heard her words, their eyes lit up. Mingyan and Jingyan had been sent by Duchess Ying as part of her dowry, right before her wedding. Before that, they were only second-tier maidservants in the estate, and they hadn’t led very good lives.
1. The Yangtze River runs through the middle of China, dividing it into the north and south. What Chu Lian means is that she’s eaten everything in China before~ XD
2. Sencha = a type of green tea. However, this is apparently the ancient kind of sencha, where all sorts of weird things are added to it… Oh my XD
