Chapter Twenty-Four The Tea Tree in the Mountain

  "Tea leaves! These are actually tea leaves. Where did you pick them from?" Yang Wei shouted as soon as he clearly saw the leaves in the cloth bag.

  Indeed, in his mind, there were no tea trees in Northeast China, so where did the little friends get their tea leaves from?

  "Weizi, you said this is tea leaves, the kind of water that rich people usually drink." "En, yes, this is indeed tea leaves, but this is still unroasted tea leaves and can't be drunk. However, where did you guys pick it from?"

  "Weige, it's me, I'm the one who picked them up from the mountain." It turned out that these days, the little friends had been taking turns going to the mountain to play. Of course, everyone was looking for a few more small dogs in the mountains, which meant those two small wolves. Yang Wei never said they were wolves, so his friends thought they were dogs. After three months, the two wolves had grown to half their adult size and looked very majestic, probably because they ate cooked meat. One of the dogs belonged to Yang Wei, while the other naturally belonged to Yingzi.

  The little friends were all envious of the two dogs, but there weren't any. So they remembered that these dogs had been found in the mountains. After getting Yang Wei's approval, the little friends started taking turns going into the mountains to find a few more dogs.

  However, Yang Wei also supported this decision at this time. He felt that these two wolves were not much different from dogs, and some were even smarter than dogs. If they could really find a few more wolf cubs, it would be great. But Yang Wei didn't understand the habits of wolves, nor did he know if they would give birth to cubs during this season. He had no choice but to let his companions go into the forest to hunt for them.

  As for safety concerns, Yang Wei is really not very worried. Now that the little friends can all walk on trees, they rarely walk on the ground, so this danger has been greatly reduced.

  And the tea leaves were found by them on a cliff in the mountains, when Yingzi was puzzled how these green leaves appeared at this time, so she climbed up to pick some leaves and bring them back for Yang Wei to see. Originally, Yang Wei also let his little friends find something unfamiliar or unexpected and bring it back for him to see, which is why Yingzi went to collect them. Tea trees, and tea leaves, who wouldn't know in the future? Of course, there are slightly fewer people who know this era, and those who drink it are not too many either.

  "Weige, there's a big one on the mountain, or we can go pick it up together." "Okay, let's go again tomorrow, it's a bit late today." "Uh-huh, Yingzi will go with Weige tomorrow." Yingzi nodded heavily in response.

  Yang Wei suddenly felt that this tea might be a good thing, as they had been eating meat for several months and hardly any vegetables or wild vegetables, let alone other grains. Now his companions were all getting tired of it, perhaps they should pick some tea leaves back to roast and drink. So today, he would first roast these leaves.

  Yang Wei didn't bother whether this tea should grow in the north or not, it just existed and didn't need to be bothered with.

  Yang Wei had never pan-fried tea before, but he had heard that in the past, there were tea gardens near their village. People would usually go to the tea garden during the season, pick tea leaves themselves, and then roast them on the spot to drink. Some people even gave Yang Wei's family their own roasted tea leaves as gifts. To be honest, Yang Wei didn't think the tea tasted good; he just felt a strong earthy smell. Maybe Yang Wei just wasn't good at drinking tea.

  "Friends, let's get moving and fry these tea leaves, don't waste them." Since they wanted to fry the tea, they needed a pot, but Yang Wei and the others only had those two iron pots for cooking. They had no choice but to wash one of the pots clean, which was quite a chore because in the past few months, the two pots had been used to cook plenty of oily food. Naturally, washing the pot meant getting rid of all the oil residue, so the friends burned through five pots of water before they finally got the pot clean and free of any greasy smell.

  Then, Yang Wei also arranged for the little friends to pick out all the sticks from the tea leaves they had picked, and also divided the tea leaves into several portions, such as tender leaves in one portion, middle leaves in one portion, and old leaves in one portion. This was also to make it easier to stir-fry, otherwise Yang Wei wouldn't have needed to divide them. If he hadn't divided them, the old leaves might not have been stir-fried well, while the tender leaves would have been overcooked, that is, burnt.

  Stir-frying tea, Yang Wei had heard that there are three steps. The first step is to kill the green by stir-frying out most of the water content in the leaves. The second step is to shape the tea into a ball or other shapes, and currently Yang Wei only knows how to shape it into a ball. The third step is to dry the shaped tea completely to remove any remaining water content.

  This step is easy to distinguish, but the work is not good. Yang Wei started from old leaves and fried four pots before it looked a bit like tea. "Brother Wei, this is tea, let me taste it first." Of course, Yingzi's presence was indispensable, especially since she had picked these tea leaves herself.

  "Ah, this is bitter and not good to drink." As a result, Yingzi spat out the first mouthful of water she drank, "Yingzi, this tea is indeed bitter, but it's something that needs to be savored slowly. Of course, your brother me won't drink it either. We only drink tea to cleanse our greasy intestines, and we don't really drink it. It's still good to have a few cups every day."

  "Alright, Wei Gege, I know," followed by Yingzi drinking the bowl of tea she had taken a sip from earlier, "Ah, bitter." Xiaoshan suddenly chimed in, "Good tea, good tea." Xiaoshan also picked up his teacup and took a sip, then slowly swallowed it down, shaking his head and saying, as if he and Yingzi were about the same age, like sworn enemies, always at odds with each other.

  "Hey, Brother Yang, look at Xiao Shan." Yingzi pulled on Yang Wei's arm and said, "Alright, alright, Yingzi. Brother won't drink either. We're doing this for our health, right? Come on, buddies, let's each have a bowl."

  "Ah, this is that tea tree! No wonder it can grow in the north." The next day, Yang Wei and his friends came to the cliff where they found the tea tree. This time, they discovered that it was a south-facing cliff, which was generally sheltered from any wind. So where did this tea tree come from? It's likely that a small bird ate the tea seeds and then dropped them here, and because of the suitable climate, they grew into a tree.