The next day, Jiang Sanlang bought quite a few items in the county town for the New Year, ready to take them back to the countryside.
He quietly told his daughter that he had sold all the looms at a price of fifty taels each.
"In total, I've earned over one thousand eight hundred taels of silver."
Jiang Sanlang laughed, "We've bought a large swath of wasteland on the South Slope, ready to be cleared in the spring. I plan on planting a pepper garden there.
With more peppers growing in the future, we won't need to soak white peppers anymore. I've heard that if you just pick semi-ripe pepper fruits and dry them directly, the black pepper produced has a stronger aroma."
If you make white pepper, soaking pepper fruits in water for a long time can result in an odd smell, and if handled improperly, it will stink. Black pepper is spicier and more fragrant in comparison.
Hence, Jiang Sanlang had decided to sun-dry black peppers from now on.