Chapter 34

To drink and sing to the wine

—

Pang the carpenter and his apprentices savored the orange wine, completely unaware of the great effort Chen Ke had put into this small jar of orange wine. Although Chen Ke loved wine, this particular wine was not for his own enjoyment but to help others.

The Chen family was a creditor to eleven families, six of whom were in Qingshen County. Besides Cai Chuanfu, there was a wine merchant surnamed Li, an orange orchard owner surnamed Zhang, a bamboo garden owner surnamed He, a sauce merchant surnamed Tu, and a charcoal merchant surnamed Qian. Chen Ke learned from the side that these families had been struggling due to various issues. In the past few years, the court had been at war with Western Xia, and to raise military funds, they imposed additional 'Xixia money' on the industries in Shu. Even the most profitable merchants were struggling under the pressure, and these six families were in even worse shape, with their debts piling up and no way to continue.

In fact, these families were not unable to repay the debts to the Chen family, but they had too many creditors. Repaying one and not the other would lead to trouble, so they decided not to repay anyone, dragging it out day by day. Although Chen Ke understood their situation, he did not approve of their dishonest behavior.

However, the saying "the debtor is the grandfather" is not without reason. As time passed, Chen Ke used his spare time to investigate these families' businesses and found that the biggest problem was with their products, not just poor management.

Take the wine merchant Li Jian, for example.

During the Song Dynasty, a patent monopoly on alcohol was implemented. In Sichuan, this policy had two levels: one was government production and sales, and the other was private production and sales. The former was monopolized by the government, which naturally enjoyed monopoly profits. The latter allowed private households to buy and contract, meaning they promised to pay a certain amount of tax to the government in exchange for the right to produce and sell wine.

This is similar to state-owned enterprises and private enterprises competing in the same industry, with predictable results. Almost all famous wines, as well as the most widely consumed yellow wine and white wine, were monopolized by the government, which did not provide yeast to the public or allow private brewing. Private wine merchants could only use traditional methods to produce fruit wines, medicinal wines, and blended wines, with fruit wines being the main type.

Song Dynasty fruit wines were low-alcohol beverages made from various fruits and wild fruits through fermentation. Chen Ke had seen grape wine, pear wine, lychee wine, pomegranate wine, jujube wine, yellow orange wine, sugarcane wine, and honey wine on the market. The variety was extensive, but the sales were poor. Initially, Chen Ke found it hard to understand, as he knew that the Song Dynasty was the only dynasty that encouraged drinking, and the Song people loved wine, preferring the smooth and fragrant low-alcohol wines. This is why yellow wine became the most popular type.

Why, then, were fruit wines, which should have been more to the Song people's taste, not selling well? After tasting them, Chen Ke understood—the wines were cloudy, full of flocculent impurities, and had a sour and bitter taste that masked the fruit aroma. For the pleasure-seeking Song people, they would rather spend more money on government-produced yellow wine and white wine than on these cheap, inferior wines.

The reason for this was that, compared to the highly developed brewing techniques for yellow wine, the techniques for fruit wine were still in a very primitive stage. People of this era had no way to deal with the sediment and suspended particles in the wine or the bitter and astringent flavors mixed in... or if they did, they kept it a closely guarded secret.

In later generations, people often brewed their own fruit wines. Chen Ke's grandfather, an old traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, would brew fruit wines and medicinal wines every year for the family to enjoy. Therefore, Chen Ke was not unfamiliar with the techniques for brewing fruit wines. However, he had never done it himself, and turning theoretical knowledge into high-quality fruit wine was no easy task.

In terms of brewing techniques, fruit wines can be divided into two types: one is self-fermenting fruit wines like grape wine and plum wine, which do not require yeast because their skins contain wild yeast that can ferment on their own. The other type requires the addition of yeast, such as apple wine, orange wine, and lychee wine, which do not naturally contain yeast and would spoil before fermentation could occur.

The yeast required to catalyze different types of wine is different, so one must obtain the specific yeast for the desired fruit wine.

Brewing self-fermenting fruit wines is simpler, but the transportation conditions of the time meant that fresh produce had regional characteristics. In other words, imported goods were expensive, while local goods were cheap. Therefore, it was impractical to source ingredients from far away.

In Qingshen, the most commonly grown fruit was the orange. Grapes were also grown, but this perishable fruit was only available for a short month each year. Locals used traditional methods to store oranges, which could last for eight months, making oranges the only fruit available year-round.

Therefore, Chen Ke wanted to try to develop an orange wine yeast. This would leverage the local advantage, reviving the wine merchant Li Jian and boosting the Zhang family's orange orchard, achieving two goals at once.

The principle of making orange wine yeast is simple: collect rotten oranges with a wine aroma, take their peels and some flesh, and add them to fresh orange juice. Then ferment at room temperature until a noticeable wine aroma is produced, indicating the presence of a large amount of orange yeast. However, the fermentation must be done at a specific concentration, for a specific time, and at a specific temperature to produce usable yeast.

Each step required experimentation to determine the correct conditions.

Fortunately, oranges in Qingshen were as cheap as dirt, and a large basket could be bought for a few dozen coins, making it feasible to experiment. From spring, he began trying to find the ideal yeast. After countless failures, he finally developed a method to determine the strength of the yeast based on the amount of fermentation bubbles produced over a certain period.

Once the appropriate yeast was obtained, fresh orange juice could be divided into small portions, each with yeast added for fermentation. After fermentation, the juice could be strained through clean cheesecloth to extract a highly concentrated original liquid.

Egg whites could then be whipped into foam, mixed with a small amount of the original liquid, and added to the jar, stirring thoroughly and letting it settle until the wine was clear. The sediment could be discarded, and the best-tasting, best-smelling, and best-colored wine could be selected and blended to produce the ideal orange wine.

This process was also long, and it was only a few days ago that Chen Ke successfully brewed an orange wine that could rival modern versions.

The fine wine was savored by Pang the carpenter and his apprentices, which was like burning a lute to cook a crane, ruining the mood.

---

By evening, Chen Xiliang returned home and saw that the furniture and windows were all brand new, almost mistaking it for the wrong house. Upon learning the truth, his expression was strange. He sat in the red sandalwood official hat chair, his left hand gently stroking the smooth tabletop, silent for a long time.

In the fading light, Chen Ke clearly saw a bright gleam in his eyes.

When Chen Chen returned, Chen Xiliang finally managed to say, "Father is incompetent..." and then got up and left, not even eating dinner.

Seeing his unusual behavior, Chen Ke was speechless. He knew that Chen Xiliang, though extremely proud, was not a rigid, face-saving person. Why was he reacting so strongly to the new furniture and windows? Was it just a few days of the month, or had his negative emotions accumulated to a breaking point?

The first dinner after the house was renewed was gloomy. Chen Chen couldn't eat, Chen Ke couldn't eat, and Wulang, seeing his brother not eating, also lost his appetite. Only Liulang could eat, but he sat pitifully, intimidated by Wulang's murderous glare.

"It's all my fault," Chen Ke said, holding his head in frustration. "I was too showy and neglected Father's feelings."

"Father is not that kind of person; you're mistaken," Chen Chen shook his head. "He's upset about something else."

"..." Chen Ke realized that he hadn't seen Chen Xiliang smile in days. Thinking about it, Chen Chen also seemed to have something on his mind, but he was too busy with his studies to ask: "What happened?"

"Ah..." Under Chen Ke's persistent questioning, Chen Chen sighed heavily. "Our engagement to the Ma family has been dissolved..."

"Engagement?" Chen Ke's eyes widened. "What engagement? I never knew about it."

"You were too young then," Chen Chen explained. "It happened eight years ago, when Father passed the provincial examination. People thought he would surely pass the imperial examination the next year, so many families came to propose marriage. Father had a classmate surnamed Ma, a wealthy family in Pengshan, and our families were considered a good match. The two grandfathers arranged the engagement."

"Wait, wait," Chen Ke raised his hand. "Who exactly was engaged?"

"I said, 'us,'" Chen Ke looked at him and spread his hands. "The Ma family had two daughters, and Father had two sons, both of similar age. Naturally, a double engagement was made, adding to the joy."

"So what happened?" Chen Ke asked, half-laughing, half-crying. "We were both dumped?"

---

Those who asked for glass will be disappointed. I am not a technical expert, and the Song Dynasty does not need to advance in technology. The inventions in this book are things that ordinary people can understand and use in daily life. In short, these inventions are meant to make life more comfortable.

I've said before that this is a book that makes you feel comfortable and relaxed. Chen Ke is not a party member and does not have the noble character of Shen Mo; he just wants to live a little better... at least for now.

No rest on Sunday, please give me your recommendations...

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