Honey has a very good health effect. The prices of different types of honey were also very different. The best first-class honey came from lychee, orange, linden, sophora, Chinese milk vetch, chaste flower, etc., and rape was the second-class honey.
In the production of royal jelly, half of it was based on rape nectar. Because royal jelly was a necessary food for the queen bee to survive, the production was relatively small. Many beekeepers did not sell royal jelly. Pure royal jelly had a very strong "strength" and a special taste. It was difficult to eat, and it was difficult for the human stomach to adapt (it would cause diarrhea), so it was rarely eaten directly. Most of the royal jelly on the market now was the result of mixing it with honey many times. The so-called "royal jelly"(a product on the market) that was mixed with a ratio of 7 was already very good. Generally, the ratio was lower. Generally speaking, honey, especially honey bought directly from beekeepers, was likely to have different colors and deposits. If the packaging was exquisite, the color and appearance of the honey were uniform, and the price was extremely low (less than 10 yuan/kg), then it was basically fake.
The osmanthus tree in Zhang Wenyuan's house had not bloomed for many years, and it suddenly bloomed again. It was a strange thing in the small village. Moreover, the fragrance of the flowers was especially strong. People could smell it from afar. The bees were even more sensitive to the fragrance of the flowers and swarmed over.
Autumn was not the peak season for bees to gather flowers and make honey. Bees were generally more idle and would spread out in all directions within a radius of three to four miles from the hive.
However, starting from noon today, Old Man Wang realized that the route of Feng Zi's honey gathering was not scattered into a circle, but a straight line. The frequency of busyness was also much faster than usual. Out of curiosity, she followed the little bee's flight path and found Zhang Wenyuan's courtyard.
She was surprised by the fragrance of osmanthus trees in Zhang Wenyuan's house. Osmanthus honey was originally a high-grade honey, and the flowers of this osmanthus tree were especially sweet and rich. The honey brewed by picking flowers at Fengzi was definitely top-grade.
As for the village chief and the others, they were either passing by or working on the mountain, attracted by the grand occasion of the peak collecting honey.
Zhang Wenyuan responded to the villagers 'compliments for a while before raising his head to look at the osmanthus tree that had already bloomed.
Ever since he watered the osmanthus trees with the spring water, it was expected that the osmanthus trees would bloom, and the flowering period would be shortened. However, he did not expect the fragrance of the flowers to be so rich that it attracted a large group of "flower thieves".
Old Man Wang, who was wandering under the tree, saw Zhang Wenyuan return and walked over with a pipe.
"Marshal, this osmanthus tree was planted by your grandfather, right? It had been 60 to 70 years and could be considered an ancient osmanthus tree. It hadn't bloomed in the past few years, but now it was blooming. Moreover, the fragrance was very strong. It had been stored for more than ten years before it was released. This was going to be a good fortune.”
He tapped his dry nose and said," The bees have collected honey. The quality of the honey produced will not be low. It's also because of your luck. When the honey is produced, I will give you a jar."”
Before Zhang Wenyuan could say anything, the people beside him let out envious voices. The honey produced in the mountains was not cheap. A kilogram of diluted honey could be sold for more than 25 yuan, and a kilogram of undiluted honey could be sold for at least 50 yuan. A can was about 500 grams. It was a gift worth about 25 yuan in the mountain village, which was considered a lot.
It wasn't until night fell that the hardworking bees left.
After the bees had completely left, Zhang Wenyuan asked his wife to pick the lamp and stand under the tree, then climbed up the tree to pick a lot of osmanthus flowers. He was going to pick some osmanthus flowers to make osmanthus cakes.
Osmanthus cake had a history of more than 300 years. It was said that in the late Ming Dynasty, there was a peddler named Liu Jixiang in Xindu County. He got inspiration from the study of Yang Shengan, the top scholar. He collected fresh osmanthus, squeezed out the bitter water, soaked it with honey, and mixed it with steamed rice noodles, glutinous rice flour, cooked oil, and sugar. He packed it into boxes and sold it, named Osmanthus Cake.
For more than 300 years, Candy Workshop, which had inherited the osmanthus cake and made osmanthus cakes, had continuously improved its production process. Now, it used refined white sugar, cerealose, flour, glutinous rice flour, vegetable oil, honey osmanthus, and so on as raw materials. It was prepared according to the appropriate proportion, and then refined through steaming, frying, grinding, mixing, rolling, box, knife cutting and other processes. The product was as white as jade, sweet and refreshing, delicate and rich in fragrance.
From the origin of osmanthus cake, it can be roughly divided into Xianning osmanthus cake, Nanjing osmanthus cake, Xianyang osmanthus cake three kinds.
Xianning Osmanthus Cake is produced in Xianning, Hubei Province, the famous hometown of osmanthus in China. The osmanthus cake was created at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The cake is soft and moist, white in color, and has a strong fragrance of osmanthus. It tastes fragrant and contains rich nutritional value. It is suitable for old and young women to eat. It is a gift for relatives and friends. Hubei Xianning Osmanthus Cake was unique in its ingredients. It was oily but not greasy, not astringent in the mouth, crisp and smooth when swallowed, salty in the sweetness, and cool in the fragrance. It was very popular among people.
There were many osmanthus flowers in Nanjing. Not only did the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum have osmanthus flowers, but there were also countless osmanthus trees hidden in the streets and alleys. October osmanthus cake, osmanthus fragrance. The osmanthus cake in Nanjing was not only beautiful in style and soft in texture, but also had a special fragrance. Even after eating it, the fragrance would not dissipate for a long time.
The production of Xiayang Osmanthus Cake has a history of more than 100 years and is famous at home and abroad. It was made of natural osmanthus juice to remove the dregs. After being stored in the cellar for three years, it was taken out to prepare Chinese medicine spices such as jujube, costustoot, muskiness, mother cloves, agarwood, cyperus rotundus, and eupatorium, which could strengthen the spleen and transform qi. It was refined into osmanthus sauce, then mixed into fried, ground, steamed, and sieved glutinous rice flour, added with high-quality white sugar, five-spice powder, sesame, and salt water, and made into a cake. Then it was moistened with water vapor to make it not loose for a long time. It became a sweet and delicious cake that could refresh the spleen. The characteristic of the Osmanthus Cake in Xiayang was its unique ingredients. It was oily but not greasy, not astringent in the mouth, crisp and smooth when swallowed, salty in the sweetness, and cool in the fragrance. It was very popular among people and became a good gift for home travel and friends. It had a reputation for hundreds of years.
In terms of eating methods, it could be divided into sesame osmanthus cold cake, soft fried osmanthus cake, osmanthus fried rice cake, and so on. (I'm drooling after writing this.)
Zhang Wenyuan had eaten all kinds of osmanthus cakes in his previous life, but he did not know how to make them. In Marshal Zhang's memory, there was a method for Grandma to make osmanthus cakes.
The osmanthus cake in his memory was the most common crystal osmanthus cake.
Without the prepared osmanthus sauce, he could only mush the fresh flowers into mud and mix it with the glutinous rice flour.
He steamed the mixed cake powder for about fifteen minutes. Then, he wrapped the cake powder with wet gauze, constantly turning and kneading until the surface was smooth and the cake powder was delicate. Then, he flattened the cake powder, pulled it into long strips, smeared it with vegetable oil, sprinkled with dried osmanthus, cut it into long cubes, or cut it into about 8cm long round strips and put them in the steamer. The water in the steamer boiled and put them in the steamer to steam for about 5 minutes.
After coming out of the cage, he first cut a piece for Ya Ya, who was squatting beside him like a greedy cat.
Although it was his first time making it, it was still considered a success. Although it was still a distance away from the ones that were specially sold, it was delicious and refreshing. It was crystal clear and filled with the fragrance of osmanthus.
October was the perfect time to eat osmanthus cake. Chewing the soft osmanthus cake and smelling the fragrance of osmanthus, how enjoyable it was.
Looking at his wife and daughter beaming with joy, he could not hide the smile on his face. Zhang Wenyuan suddenly realized that perhaps they weren't happy because they had osmanthus cakes, but because they were more satisfied with the process itself because they made it themselves.
In fact, they didn't ask for much. In the past, Zhang Dashuai still couldn't give them. Now, as long as Zhang Wenyuan paid a little more attention, they were easily satisfied.
After resting, Zhang Wenyuan took out the red flowers from the box and showed them to his wife.
"I picked these herbs when I entered the mountain today. They are called crocus. They should grow in large quantities in Tibetan areas. It was very rare, and he could only encounter it occasionally if he was lucky, so he picked such a big box.”
Jiang Yazhi looked at it and made a hand gesture in confusion. Was this the same herb that her grandfather had given her some time ago?
"That's right. Grandpa also gave you crocus. Drinking tea is good for your body. It can gradually remove the root cause of your illness from the confinement period.”
"I'll go to the city tomorrow and sell these red flowers.”
Didn't the town accept them?
"The town also accepts them, but the price in the town is much lower than in the city. These red flowers were quite a lot. The difference was a few hundred or even a few thousand yuan.”
Jiang Yazhi still didn't understand and looked at Zhang Wenyuan in confusion. In her mind, the most expensive medicinal herbs were only a few hundred yuan per catty. How many catties of red flowers were there in the box? Even if the difference between a catty in the city and a catty in the town was only a few tens of yuan, the difference was not that much.
Zhang Wenyuan continued," I'm not bragging. Don't look down on this red flower. It's not sold by catty, but by grams. One gram costs more than 20 yuan."”
Seeing his wife's puzzled expression, he realized that the villagers had always been talking about weight. The villagers did not have the concept of grams at all.
"Let's put it this way. One catty is 500 grams. These are about two catties. We can finally sell them for more than 25,000 yuan.”
This time, Jiang Yazhi understood. Her eyes were wide and round, and her mouth could not close for a long time due to surprise. He pointed at Zhang Wenyuan for a while, then at himself. His arms were waving subconsciously, but he could not convey any information.
Zhang Wenyuan understood his wife's current feelings. She was like a city dweller who had won the lottery. She could not control herself for a moment.
It was no wonder that she behaved like this. For a person in a rural area, 20,000 yuan was already a huge number. If it was calculated purely based on the crops, it was equivalent to more than three years of total income. Moreover, Jiang Yazhi had never had more than 1,000 yuan on hand. 20,000 yuan was definitely a shocking number. Even though it was only herbs and had not been exchanged for cash, it was enough to make him feel agitated. He held the box nervously and carefully. This was because he was indeed afraid of being poor previously.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。