Struggle in the Steam Age

Is this the result of your research? Lawrence looked curiously at the two small bags that Nora took out from behind. In one of the small bags, some tea leaves that were roughly strip-shaped and full of wrinkles could be seen after drying. And the contents of the other small bag didn't even look like the tea leaves in his impression, but just some reddish-brown powdery items with very coarse particles.

That's it. This is the best solution I selected after a night of experiments and hundreds of attempts. Nora looked at Lawrence's expression and quickly explained, Don't look at these two packages. It doesn’t look good, but I tried brewing it and it tastes really good. The reason why these teas become like this is because my special method of fermentation can not guarantee their appearance while ensuring the taste.”

You should be black tea. After carefully looking at it for more than ten seconds, Lawrence realized what this kind of tea was at this time, and in his memory, all the tea sold in this world no matter where it was sold. It's green tea, there has never been such a thing as black tea. So when I saw these powdered tea leaves before, I really didn't think of other ways to drink tea besides green tea.

Unlike Lawrence's previous life, where different regions have different tea drinking methods, there is only green tea in this world. And the methods of drinking tea were all unified into the green tea brewing method of the Cathay Empire. There are not as many tea varieties and drinking methods as in the previous life.

After a brief thought, Lawrence probably understood why the drinking methods of tea in the two worlds are so different. The reason is very simple, that is because there is magic in this world. So much so that it can solve many problems that were difficult to solve in ancient times in the world of Lawrence.

For example, in the world of Lawrence's previous life, the reason why Westerners drank black tea was because they discovered that green tea had a short shelf life after being exposed to Eastern green tea in the early stage, and it was difficult to store it for a long time and transport it back to their hometown. So they can only choose those black teas that can be stored for a long time after fermentation. Then I was lucky enough to find out another way of drinking tea that suits me, and finally made black tea popular in the West.

The problem of tea preservation has not been completely resolved until later generations, which has affected many things. For example, Lawrence remembered that in his previous life, some varieties of fermented Pu-erh tea were hyped up to sky-high prices and became luxury goods. But the price of green tea is far lower than these black teas.

The reason for this is that as a luxury, a very important feature is the requirement to preserve its value. It is a pity that green tea is often only the freshest tea of ​​the year is the most valuable, and then it will continue to depreciate over time. But black tea does not have this weakness and can be preserved for a long time.

However, in this world, magic ability can make green tea that has been stored for dozens or even hundreds of years be as fresh as when it was first stored. As a luxury drink that came from afar, using magic to keep tea fresh is obviously a worthwhile thing.

This also led to the fact that the tea in this world did not encounter the complicated preservation problems of Lawrence's previous world from the very beginning, and then the brewing and drinking method passed down from the East completely unified the entire world. So much so that even the most elegant elves choose the drinking method from the East, but the drinking procedure is a little more complicated, and it has the so-called elegance of elves.

But today, in the face of large swaths of the central hills, there is no way to brew and drink tea as green tea. Nora thought of the fermented black tea from her previous life, and she thought that the astringent and bitter phenolic substances and caffeine in these teas might be resolved through fermentation.

Naturally, the experiment was not smooth sailing. Not only did the bitterness and astringency not be reduced at the beginning, but the tea became more bitter due to over-fermentation or failure of fermentation many times, and sometimes a large amount of unpleasant rancidity was mixed into it. But fortunately, the little puppet can precisely control the fermentation environment by using her magic power, and at the same time, she can also accurately judge the ingredients of each part of the tea. So it took only a few hundred experiments to come up with the current finished product.

After someone delivered a small pot of boiling water, Lawrence waited for the boiling water to drop to around 85°C and used it to brew the first kind of black tea. Unlike green tea, in his impression black tea requires a higher water temperature. After waiting for three to five minutes after brewing, a cup of tea soup appeared in front of him. The color of the tea soup is orange-red and bright, and there is a golden halo around the soup noodles, which looks like a golden crown.

This tea seems to have a fruity aroma, and it smells very pleasant. After seeing the color of the tea soup and sniffing it with his nose close to the cup, Lawrence said to Nora beside him, waiting for the temperature of the tea soup After falling down a little, he took a sip from his teacup. There is a faint aroma, and the taste is very mellow. By the way, what happened to your other bag of powdered black tea?

These powdered black teas are made from the older leaves of the tea leaves, and the taste is stronger. Nora said and flew out, and flew in after a while holding a can of milk. At the beginning of production, I have been trying to make these old leaves with larger yields become as suitable for clear drinking as the previous tea, but later found that if I increase the intensity of fermentation to remove the bitterness , the unique aroma of tea leaves is gone.”

So I tried to change my mind and came up with English afternoon tea. That kind of black tea is served with milk and sugar, which can enhance the flavor and reduce the unpleasant bitterness through the taste of milk and sugar. .”

Milk tea, it's been a long time since I've had it. Watching the little puppet start brewing those powdered tea leaves with magic, Lawrence muttered in a low voice, although in his previous life he was worried about the number of times he drank milk tea with sugar Rarely, but now that I am in a foreign country, I start to miss that taste. By the way, do you say that for milk tea, do you pour milk into the tea, or pour tea into the milk?

Uh—— Nora turned her head and said after hearing Lawrence's sudden question. If I remember correctly, even in England, where this method of drinking tea is most popular, there was no final result of the debate.

From a more scientific point of view, according to a 2003 paper by the Royal Society of Chemistry, hot tea should be poured into cold milk. Because if milk is poured into boiling tea, the protein in the milk will be denatured, and the tea's The bitterness will not disappear, and the protein will deteriorate when heated, and it is easy to coagulate, not only the taste is no longer smooth, but also hydrogen sulfide is produced, giving off a milky smell;

Conversely, if the tea is poured into cold milk, the bitterness disappears because the temperature of the tea mixed with the milk is not, at least initially, higher than that which would denature the proteins, so the proteins can complex with the tannins.

However, traditionally, the group of British aristocrats prefer to pour cold milk into hot tea, thinking that this can avoid adding too much or too little milk. More importantly, this method has stronger cultural blessings. For example That's the Queen of England.

Then let's add the tea to the cold milk. After all, from a scientific point of view, it tastes better when brewed this way. Lawrence said after thinking for a while. As for tradition, anyway, no one in this world except us two knows how the British drink tea, and they don't even know what Britain is. And the method we use is tradition.

You're right. Nora filtered the brewed tea with a strainer taken out of the laboratory to extract the tea juice, then poured it into the milk, and then poured it into two cups, one large and one small. It's the most important thing. After all, it's just a drink.