Traveling through 70's wine

She planned to take a two-pronged approach, soaking grains in the space to make strong-flavor liquor, and preparing to make light-flavor liquor outside the space. This was mainly because the wine cellar in the backyard had not been cultivated yet and could not be used to make wine.

Light-fragrance liquor is brewed in earthenware jars and does not have these problems.

This is the first time to brew wine outside the space, and now it is winter, the temperature is relatively low, and the fermentation time will be longer.

She crushed the grains roughly and soaked them in warm water.

After thinking about it, according to the current temperature, I need to light a fire in the backyard to raise the ambient temperature to ensure normal fermentation.

Wen Qing left the yard and went to Xiaoya Mountain to collect firewood.

Erxia Village is on the east side of Xiaoya Mountain. The west end of the village is connected to Xiaoya Mountain, and the east side is flat land, so Wen Qing kept walking towards the depths of Xiaoya Mountain in the west, where few people go and there is more firewood.

People in the village would also go up the mountain to collect firewood, but they mainly burned straw, and firewood was just a supplement.

Wen Qing couldn't go to the fields to pick up other people's straw, so he usually bought coal at a high price, and sometimes went up the mountain to pick up some dead branches to burn.

But now brewing wine requires a lot of firewood, and coal is not available. She decided to use the firewood from the mountains. In the future, since coal will not require tickets, she will mainly burn coal and gas.

She walked far and found a lot of dead branches on the mountain. She also cut down the reeds and miscanthus on the mountain, which could be used for firewood after drying. She put most of the firewood she picked up into the space, leaving only some in a backpack and carrying it back to the yard.

After returning to the courtyard, Wen Qing piled all the firewood in the backyard and went to the space to brew wine.

She steamed the soaked grains and rice husks, mixed the two and added hot water. She waited until the temperature dropped below 30 degrees before adding the koji. She put the mixed grain dregs into the wine cellar, sealed it, and waited for the wine to be ready.

The liquor she makes in the backyard is a light-fragrant one. She adds water to sorghum, rice, corn, and wheat in a certain proportion and steams them. She then pours them onto a clean bamboo mat to cool, and then sprinkles in boiled water. She waits until the temperature of the grains drops before carefully mixing in the koji, pouring it into a clean earthen jar in the backyard, and sealing the mouth of the jar with a clean plastic cloth.

Wen Qing was quite worried. She had been using this process, but she didn't know whether she could successfully make wine outside the space?

After the lees were put into the tank for fermentation, she had nothing else to do, so she started thinking about how to sell the things she brought back from Hong Kong.

She decided to take a walk to the Yulin Lake to see if she could meet Xiaozhuang.

I rode my bike around Yulin Lake but didn't see Xiaozhuang, so I decided to go to Shenjiayuan first to see what was going on.

There were people coming and going in Shenjiayuan. Wen Qing saw that during the day, some people set up small tables in front of their homes to sell needles, thread, buttons, and zippers. Some people also set up stalls in front of their homes to sell fried cakes, twisted dough sticks, and sugar cakes. Wen Qing counted them and found that there were more than ten stalls.

She walked into the Deyong Trust Store and saw the master, Mr. Zeng, in the store. She bowed and said, "Mr. Zeng, I wish you a happy old age!"

Mr. Zeng still had some impression of Wen Qing, so he bowed back: "Happy New Year!"

"Mr. Zeng, how is business?"

Zeng Lao smiled and said, "Not bad."

The smile didn't last long before it died, "Alas, it's harder to collect things in the store now than before."

Wen Qing asked the reason, and it turned out that now that the free market has emerged, many people no longer sell second-hand goods through trust stores, and Mr. Zeng was worried that the store’s inventory would be sold out and there would be no more supply.

Wen Qing smiled and said, "If you don't have old stuff, just sell new stuff. Your place is so good, as long as you have stuff, won't customers come in droves?"

Mr. Zeng seemed to be thinking about something. Their store was a district store, and he planned to ask the district for some things to sell. Otherwise, how would he pay the salaries of the more than 20 people in the store?

The two chatted happily, and Wen Qing asked Zeng Lao to bring out some good stuff. Zeng Lao smiled, took out a bag of jade from under the counter, and asked, "Do you want this jade?"

Wen Qing took a look and saw more than 20 pieces of Hetian jade. She asked, "Mr. Zeng, how did you get so many jades? These are jade materials, right? Didn't you sell ancient jade before?"

Mr. Zeng said: "Before the Spring Festival, a fellow from an ethnic minority in the border area brought it to sell. I felt sorry for him, so I bought it in."

"how much is it?"

"There are 1 pieces of jade in total, and I spent 2000 to yuan to buy them. These jades are all seed materials, which cannot be eaten or used, and are not easy to sell."

Wen Qing's eyes lit up, and she asked hurriedly, "How are you going to sell it?"

"I sold a few of them. These are 100 yuan each. Do you want some?"

Wen Qing took it and looked at it carefully. There were 26 pieces of jade in total. The big ones were half the size of a palm, and the small ones were only the size of a finger. Wen Qing bargained: "Mr. Zeng, you are selling it for two or three times the price. It's too expensive."

The two bargained and finally agreed that the large one would be 120 yuan a piece and the small one would be 80 yuan a piece. Mr. Zeng got double the price on average, and he was very satisfied.

Wen Qing gave a total of 5000 yuan.

The jade transaction was concluded, and Wen Qing asked quietly, "Mr. Zeng, do you want the recorder from Sakura Country?"

Domestic recorders are rare. When Mr. Zeng heard that it was a recorder from Sakura Country, he immediately asked quietly: "What kind of recorder is it? Come with me inside to talk."

Wen Qing followed him into the office and took out a pocket tape recorder. Mr. Zeng saw that the tape recorder was only the size of a book and was finely made. After listening to Wen Qing's introduction, he learned that this machine could be used as a radio and could also play tapes, and he became very interested.

Wen Qing turned on the switch, tuned to the radio station, and immediately heard the broadcast; she put the tape in again, and the tape Wen Qing played was a tape of Hong Kong and Taiwan songs.

Mr. Zeng took it, tuned the channel himself, listened and found the sound was very clear. He pressed the play button, the tape started to turn, and a melodious song came out.

"How much is one?"

"200 dollars."

"It's too expensive." Mr. Zeng lowered the price.

"It's not expensive. Nowadays, a radio costs 150 yuan. This tape recorder can also play tapes."

The two men agreed on 180 yuan per unit, and Mr. Zeng ordered 80 units to test the waters.

Wen Qing promised to deliver it in the afternoon. She rode her bike out of Shenjiayuan, returned home, had lunch, and then rode her bike again to Deyong with a big bag on her back.

Mr. Zeng was waiting for her. When he saw her take out 80 tape recorders, he checked them one by one and happily paid yuan. Wen Qing took the money and left.

Mr. Zeng doesn’t purchase goods for the trust store; these are his own business.

Since the government promoted an open economy, people like Mr. Zeng, who have been doing business since the old days, have clearly discovered that the market has changed and that people's lives have become better.

As a result, the supply of goods for their pawn shops became a problem, and the managers of the stores they entrusted were just getting by without thinking about subsequent transformation. In recent months, the salaries of their employees have been borrowed from the district.

Master Zeng realized that this was not a long-term solution, so he secretly bought the jade when the ethnic minority fellow came to sell it. At that time, he thought that if he couldn't sell it, he would lose 1500 yuan at most. Anyway, the material was there and he could always find a way to sell it in the future.

Who would have thought that in just over 20 days, he had doubled his sales and achieved a profit margin of 200%.

So, when Wen Qing asked him if he wanted a tape recorder, he immediately decided to purchase some. These 80 tape recorders could still be sold by adding 50 yuan to each one.

Mr. Zeng returned home, called his two sons, and asked them to ask their colleagues and friends at work if they wanted a tape recorder.

In Deyong's commissioned store, he also placed a desktop recorder that the store had received in the most conspicuous place on the counter, and when people came to inquire, he privately promoted his own portable recorder. He believed that when the prices of two items were similar, rational people would choose the one with a newer design.

Wen Qing has a lot of things on hand, and management is relatively loose during the Spring Festival, so she ships the goods to various markets in the city.

Sometimes she dressed up as a middle-aged woman and set up a stall, sometimes she sold directly to middlemen, and sometimes she sold at the ghost market. Before she knew it, young playboys with portable tape recorders began to become popular in Pingjing, and there were also old people carrying tape recorders to listen to opera in the garden.

The tape recorder in Zeng Lao's hand was sold out smoothly, and the tape recorder in Wen Qing's hand was also sold out.