Song Tan’s Chronicle - Chapter 118.1

Tea? What middle-aged or elderly person doesn’t love it?

Eldest Song was tempted, “How much do you pay for tea picking a day?”

Wu Lan didn’t hold back, “150 yuan. This year, our tea trees were fertilized well, so they grew nicely. You can pick about five pounds a day. Your trees haven’t been tended for years, so it won’t be easy to pick. A person might get about three pounds a day.”

She was being honest. Tea trees need to be pruned yearly and the buds picked. Otherwise, they grow wild, tall, and skinny, swaying in the wind. The buds also get thinner and lighter.

When someone stands in such an overgrown tea garden, they can’t even see the end of the trees. You have to pull the branches down to pick the leaves.

Wu Lan’s estimate of three pounds a day was already on the optimistic side.

Even though Eldest Song hadn’t taken care of his tea garden for years, he knew its condition well.

Elsewhere, if the location had better transportation, such tea gardens could still be leased out to large tea merchants. However, in their area, the tea was not famous, the mountain roads were bad, and the land was scattered…

All in all, his tea garden was like a wilderness.

He was still considering whether it was worth it when Mao Li immediately refused, “That won’t work. Tea on the market costs only two or three hundred yuan per pound, five or six hundred for the good stuff. Buying it ready-made is less hassle.”

“If you hire someone to pick tea, you won’t even get a pound of dried tea in a day, and you’ll have to pay out over 100 to 200 yuan. Why bother? It’s not like we can’t afford to buy tea.”

Her words had an underlying meaning, but Wu Lan felt relieved.

If it wasn’t cost-effective, then so be it. After all, if they hired someone to process the tea leaves, they’d have to pay for it.

Currently, there were four tea pickers at her house, plus Wu Lan and Wang Lifeng, who were helping out. They could produce six pounds of dried tea a day.

Zhou Maozhu manually processed the tea leaves without a machine to ensure freshness. The fresh leaves were dried for a few hours, and then the tea-making process began in the middle of the night. Although they skipped the sifting process, it was still hard work every day.

If Eldest Song wanted to join in, it would cost her a lot!

Mao Li’s refusal made Wu Lan secretly happy.

Who knew that a minute later, she heard Eldest Song ponder and say, “Wu Lan, how do you sell your tea leaves? Give me a pound, then. Family tea is always safe to drink.”

Wu Lan: …

She had to repeat her usual line, “Eldest Brother, my tea leaves are quite expensive.”

No matter what, you couldn’t argue that there wasn’t a pound available, so that excuse wouldn’t work.

No more discussion.