Food Intelligence King

Chapter 32 The Paradox of Iced Plum Juice

After entertaining Teacher Li and Brother Sui, we sent a box of pickled cucumbers to Grandpa Yu.

In this round of intelligence gathering, the more time-sensitive matters have also been dealt with.

Chen Zhou felt much more relaxed.

There are more than a hundred different kinds of customers every day, and without intelligence, Chen Zhou rarely has the opportunity to learn about their situations.

However, having obtained information about the diners, Chen Zhou couldn't help but make some changes because of them.

This is the same as the live pig futures he bought.

Although he knew the profits would come next week, Chen Zhou would still take a look every now and then.

"Still moving sideways, give it some steam, you pig!"

Fortunately, the market had already closed when Chen Zhou set up his stall, so it wouldn't affect his business.

However, when it comes to the sour plum drink with the highest repurchase rate,

They were a few young women working part-time at Cainiao Post Station.

They weren't particularly interested in steamed buns, but for the past two days, they'd come over to buy a cup of chilled plum juice every time they saw Chen Zhou set up his stall.

In their eyes,
Sour plum juice is cheaper than milk tea, and it tastes better than milk tea.

Eighteen years old is arguably the most beautiful age in life. Health and wellness are not yet on their radar.

Chen Zhou quite enjoyed interacting with these young girls.

In particular, you can feel the strong youthful energy emanating from them.

The little girls calling him "brother" made everyone feel younger.

That evening,

As Chen Zhou parked his food cart and saw them approaching in a group, he couldn't help but recall his own experience taking the college entrance exam.

I remember that afternoon, after finishing the last exam, English, I had a few minutes left to check my test paper.

Those few minutes were the most peaceful moments of his life.

My mind was almost completely blank.

Who could have predicted that I would get married, have children, and be struggling with life like this in the future?
As the old saying goes, one cannot simultaneously possess youth and the feeling of youth. That's certainly true.

But Chen Zhou's old sayings undoubtedly reveal his age.

After listening to Chen Zhou's rambling, several girls said one after another, "Brother, the last subject isn't English anymore."

"My last subject was history."

"biology."

"When I took the geography exam, most of the other students had already finished their exams."

The three people were not only different from Chen Zhou in their last exam, but they were also different from each other.

Perhaps this is what the generation gap is all about.

While selling plum juice these past few days, Chen Zhou also noticed a problem—

After accidentally freezing a cup of plum juice into a solid block of ice, it initially tasted very sweet and sour, but the flavor became increasingly weak as it drank more.

He recalled experiencing this situation while drinking iced beer and milk tea.

Adding ice cubes will dilute the original flavor of the drink.

Although ice cubes can cool down the drink, the melting water eventually dilutes the flavor of the beverage.

Especially in summer,

The ice melts too quickly, which makes the flavor dilution more noticeable.

To address this issue, Chen Zhou chopped up the entire block of sour plum juice ice and used it as ice cubes.

Since he had to take care of the kids anyway when he got home, Chen Zhou simply started conducting experiments at home.

He will provide the samples.
Ms. Lin and Chen Taotao helped with the experiment and tasting.

The experiment was a blind sample test.
Parallel and blank controls were also added.

Aside from the fact that the average age of the participants was less than eighteen, the experiment itself was relatively scientific and rigorous.

The first group consists of completely liquid plum juice stored in the refrigerator.

The second set consists of crushed ice cubes for plum juice. The third set consists of plum juice with added crushed ice.

The fourth group consisted of plum juice with added water and ice cubes.

The experiment will record the taste of the first bite, the taste after 20 minutes, and the taste after it has completely melted.

However, because the ice hadn't started to melt yet, Chen Zhou only served the mother and daughter three cups of this "first taste".

A biological mother and her own daughter certainly wouldn't be so particular.

Of course, you take a sip, and I take a sip.

But after tasting three cups, Chen Taotao, who could now count on her fingers very clearly, couldn't help but look up at Chen Zhou and ask:

"Dad, why aren't there four?"

Chen Zhou had no choice but to temporarily violate the guidelines of blind sample testing and show the little girl the plum juice, which was still in an icy state.

"Can you drink it, Peach?"

Chen Taotao was unwilling to give up, so she still leaned forward and licked it.

After licking it, he grinned and said to Chen Zhou, "It's icy cold, but it has no taste."

Then she looked at Ms. Lin and said, "Mom, you should try it too!"

The elderly father truthfully recorded their evaluations—

Chen Taotao: Ice, tasteless; Lin Yifan: Refuse.

Leave it in the kitchen for 20 minutes.

Most of the ice in the glass had melted. The amber liquid, mixed with some suspended ice, looked quite appealing.

This time, Chen Zhou poured out four cups and gave them to Ms. Lin and Tao Tao to taste.

Chen Taotao took big gulps of her drink, then pouted and pointed at Chen Facai.

The implication is clear: the bad cat should also get a taste.

Although Chen Zhou discovered the cat, Chen Tao Tao caught it.

But how exactly to raise them—what kind of cat food to feed them, what they can eat, where their activity area is, and how often to deworm them.
I've always relied on Ms. Lin.

Chen Zhou looked at his wife and said, "A cat's life is only 3,000 days long, let it have a taste."

Ms. Lin smiled and nodded.

I poured some into the cat's bowl as well, using a cup.

From the moment we arrived, Fa Cai had been huddled under the table, seemingly eager to try it.

At this moment, seeing Ms. Lin adding something to the cat's bowl, it immediately ran over and started licking it.

The nimble tongue rolled the plum juice into the mouth one bite at a time.

Although it seemed to frown at first, it still drank all the plum juice in the bowl.

Wealth doesn't speak, but silently offers a "+1 positive review".

Chen Zhou received real-time feedback from the cat eaters and couldn't help but shake his head and smile.

It seems that Ms. Lin is not even as good as a cat.
Ms. Lin and Chen Taotao tasted the plum juice in three separate sessions, and Chen Zhou recorded the results of each tasting.

The flavor is based on liquid plum juice.

The final result showed that the flavor was strongest in the large ice cube before it completely melted.

This is consistent with Chen Zhou's own observations.

Secondly, plum juice with crushed ice can achieve better results when the ice is partially melted.

Those with added white ice were always placed last in the queue.

From this, we can roughly deduce that...

Using plum juice ice cubes as a cooling agent is most effective only when the ice cubes have not completely melted.

Ms. Lin summarized it as follows:
"It seems that during freezing, only the water, sugar, and flavor compounds from the plum juice were frozen; they weren't actually frozen solid."
Therefore, the more water melts, the milder the taste.

Another piece of useless trivia has been added to my knowledge.

(End of this chapter)