บท 19: Tea Brewing Contest
Manager Hou waited for the other managers to sit down before turning his attention back onto the 10 girls, who nervously stood to the side.
"What all of you will be competing in is Tea Preparation. In this category, you will compete in the skill of preparing and serving tea. You must demonstrate the skill of tea preparation by brewing and presenting to each of the judges a total of two beverages. The first will be a normal green tea we have chosen while the other will be a beverage prepared from any tea chosen by you from the tea samples provided by us."
Finishing his speech, all 10 of the girls nervously look at the tea samples laying out on the 10 different stations prepared for them.
There were all kinds of tea samples present and it could be used to make a wide variety of different ones.
"The use of tea additives such as sugar, milk and so on is prohibited and blending samples of the tea is prohibited. Brewing is considered to have begun the moment of contact of tea with water! That is all you may begin when you see fit." A middle-aged woman, who was one of the managers who just arrived, spoke up just before the girls began their tea brewing.
Zhi Ruo listened attentively to what was told as she quickly made her way over to her station.
The Camellia leaves were in good condition and had already been prepared, so Zhi Ruo decided to just get started, as she took a kettle and filled it with water before heating it up.
When the water started boiling, she let it cool for about 2 minutes time. Before carefully lifting the kettle, she filled the teapot with hot water before setting it aside.
Picking up the Camellia leaves, Zhi Ruo measured 1 teaspoon of loose leaves into the water. Allowing the tea leaves to steep for another 3 minutes before placing a strainer over the cup and pouring the tea into it, so that there would not be any leaves in the tea.
With her green tea finished. Zhi Ruo looked around at the other girls and saw that most of them were not finished brewing yet, so Zhi Ruo relaxed slightly as she decided to take a look at the other tea samples present and decided what she could brew for her second beverage as she waited for the judges to come.
Looking at all the samples presented, Zhi Ruo decided that she would make a black tea for her second beverage. Black tea was something Zhi Ruo had made many times before and was familiar with, so she was certain that she would be able to do well.
"Ah, Zhi Ruo! Are you ready for us to try your tea?" A voice sounded besides her as she turned around and saw the managers of the servant quarters or in this case, the judges standing right in front of her station.
"Y-yes, of course." Zhi Ruo answered as she gently served a cup over to each of the judges for tasting.
"Hmm… The aroma is great."
"Good taste as well."
"The aftertaste is on point as well. Overall, I think you did a great job with the green tea Zhi Ruo."
Complimenting her tea, each of the judges smiled happily at her as they started evaluating her tea.
"You are definitely great at tea brewing Zhi Ruo! We will be going to the other contestants now to try their tea, so you can begin on the second one now. I'm looking forward to it, Zhi Ruo." Manager Hou said as he smiled brightly at Zhi Ruo, apparently, he really liked the tea that she brewed.
"Y-yes, Sir!" Fumbling slightly over her words, Zhi Ruo excitedly picked out the things she needed to brew the black tea and began on that as well.
By the time that the judges reached her station once again to try her black tea, seven people had already been disqualified, leaving only Zhi Ruo and two other girls behind.
Serving the black tea for the judges, Zhi Ruo nervously looked on them as they each carefully tasted her tea and judged it.
"You have done well again Zhi Ruo, we will try the others tea as well before coming to a final verdict."
An older man among the judges said as the group moved towards the next contestants station.
Zhi Ruo was extremely nervous as she anxiously stared at the judges and other contestants, hoping that she had done better than they had.
Time passed and the judges had left to discuss among themselves after tasting all three of the girl's tea.
It was only one long hour after they had left to discuss between themselves that all of them returned.
"After we discussed among ourselves, we have concluded that the overall winner of the tea brewing competition will be Zhi Ruo, as she by far surpassed our expectations in regard to the green tea that she managed to brew. The black tea lacked to some extent when compared to the green tea, but overall, it was by far the best among the ones you chose to brew yourselves!"
Zhi Ruo felt a wave of happiness overcome her as she started smiling from ear to ear, while the other two contestants let out a depressed sound.
"Zhi Ruo, if you could please follow me and get you assigned as the servant of Elder Xuan's first disciple." Manager Hou looked proudly at Zhi Ruo as he said this.
He had thought that it would be one of the other girls who managed to win at the start, but Zhi Ruo showed that she was just as brilliant if not more so.
For the servant quarters, having someone who excels at their job is a thing to be proud of. The managers themselves knew that the Flying Sword Sect rewarded them every time a servant they sent did a good job.
An example would be the recent ace servant of the servant quarters who ended up becoming a servant of one of the core elders, he showed talent in cultivation and ended up becoming the personal disciple of the core elder!
The core elder in question sent a large amount of resources to the servant quarters which helped them expand even more.
To this day, the servant quarters had long since expanded beyond the northern region that the Flying Sword Sect controlled!
Zhi Ruo didn't know what Manager Hou was thinking about and just followed him to the registration building full of happiness at finally being able to return the favor of being helped by Xuan Hao back then.
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PurpleSpring
PurpleSpring Yes I know... no more tea or food related chapters...
and for the 0.001 % who acctually know about tea brewing. I know that this it not 100% accurate in regards to the art of tea preparation that this chapter is based on. Part of me wanted to go down the rabbit hole of including everything from tea preparation to tea mixology, but people would probably not really find the next 10 chapters being an in-depth explanation of all the steps a Tea Master goes through. I would highly recommend watch the Tea Masters Cup if you are interrested in that :)
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