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"The taste truly was different."
After drinking the freshly brewed hot tea, the flavor had indeed improved, not just a little bit.
Gulp.
Drinking tea on an empty stomach wasn't good for the body. Xia Yu rubbed his stomach, took a few more sips of tea, savoring it, and then reluctantly set down the teacup.
His eyes were bright.
The tea ceremony was the art of appreciating the beauty of tea.
It was a form of lifestyle art, a life etiquette, and also a way of self-cultivation.
The earliest and most complete tea ceremony was the Tang Dynasty's Lu Yu's boiled tea ceremony.
Xia Yu used to think that the tea ceremony was all for show, that the complex rituals were just for display. Over the past two years, through the old man's teachings, his perspective had changed.
The meticulousness of the tea art was akin to culinary skills.
Ordinary families would also cook dishes and brew tea, but compared to professional levels, such cooking and tea art were much more free-spirited.
Any skill elevated to a professional level had to become serious, rigorous, and meticulous.
Xia Yu, having just digested the newfound knowledge of the tea ceremony in his mind, seemed like a tea expert who had undergone years of tea training. After tasting the tea he brewed himself, he secretly gave a thumbs-up.
Impressive!
That thousand points of notoriety was well spent!
A few sips of hot tea cleared his previously muddled head.
"Tea still needs to be paired with snacks..."
Xia Yu smacked his lips, feeling hungry, and scooped up some water, planning to make breakfast for himself, and also including portions for An Ya and Mu Xiaoyue.
Knock! Knock!
Someone knocked on the kitchen door behind him.
"What is it?" Xia Yu, busy at the kitchen counter with his back to the door, responded irritably.
"..."
An eerie silence.
Thinking it was the tomboy Mu Xiaoyue, and not hearing a reply, Xia Yu poured the hot water into a copper bowl filled with flour, glanced back, and then was taken aback.
At the door, it wasn't An Ya, nor Mu Xiaoyue, but a graceful young girl.
Sen Tian Makoto seemed to have dressed up specially today. She wore a white shirt on top, a black short skirt below, brown uniform shoes on her feet, and black cotton socks reaching her calves. She exuded a sense of youth.
She clearly understood her strengths and qualities. Perhaps it was due to her helping her family manage the cake house from a young age. Sen Tian Makoto was far more mature than others her age. The long-sleeved white shirt not only accentuated her well-developed curves but also highlighted her maturity and grace. If she were wearing women's suit pants instead of a short skirt, she would be a beautiful career woman.
Xia Yu's eyes lit up, and he whistled silently in his heart.
He had to admit, Sen Tian Makoto's outfit matched his tastes quite well.
"Why didn't you say anything when you came in?" Xia Yu joked as he kneaded the dough.
"Squeak—"
"What are you squeaking for!"
Xia Yu felt a bit awkward, so he stopped, pointing to the half-formed dough in the copper bowl. "I'll leave the kneading to you, pastry master."
"No problem!"
Today, Sen Tian Makoto was playful. She was obviously very familiar with the kitchen at the restaurant, rolled up her white shirt sleeves, thoroughly washed her fair and slender hands, and stood beside Xia Yu.
You could tell a professional by their first move.
Seeing Sen Tian Makoto's kneading technique, Xia Yu nodded secretly.
Her basics were pretty good. Although many modern pastries had machines replacing manual work, as a chef, one shouldn't rely too heavily on machines; the basic skills still needed to be accumulated through practice.
As she said, Sen Tian Makoto never abandoned her culinary skills, always accumulating and progressing over the years, waiting for transformation.
"It seems she's best at traditional Japanese pastries." Xia Yu mused, resting his chin on his hand.
Sen Tian's Cake House could be considered a long-standing establishment. Without mentioning Uncle Sen Tian's skills, from what Xia Yu's physical memory told him, the sea bream cake, sakura cake, dorayaki, mochi, and dumplings made by Sen Tian Makoto were all quite good.
You could probably describe her as dexterous and skillful.
However, pastries were just her area of specialization. Sen Tian Makoto once participated in the entrance selection for the Far Moon Middle School, so her skills certainly weren't limited to pastries.
While Sen Tian Makoto was kneading the dough, Xia Yu wasn't idle either. He took a fresh piece of pork out of the fridge, picked up a kitchen knife, chop-chop-chop, cut it into pieces, and then minced it until it became meat paste.
Next was marinating the meat, adding salt, soy sauce, and sesame oil, and mixing it all evenly.
You could add water infused with scallions and ginger during this process or chop the ginger and scallions into small pieces and mix them in. Xia Yu decided to do both, adding ginger-scallion water and a bit of chopped scallions to mix.
Sen Tian Makoto had already kneaded the dough, stepped aside, and looked at him with bright eyes, "Are you making steamed buns?"
"Yes!"
Xia Yu took over the next steps: cutting the dough, rolling it out, and wrapping the filling with the dough. In no time, the three-tiered steamer on the kitchen counter was filled with steamed buns.
He placed the steamer on the stove's steaming pot and lit the fire.
"Whoosh"
A bluish flame bloomed. Xia Yu washed his hands with a flourish and then gazed at the waiting young girl beside him.
"Do you remember what I said last night?"
"You really want to help me?"
Sen Tian Makoto slightly opened her mouth, hesitatingly saying, "But the transfer exam for Far Moon High School is much harder than the middle school's entrance selection. Out of a hundred candidates, maybe only one or two pass."
Students at Far Moon High School mostly advanced from the middle school. Before graduation, this batch of middle school students had already been screened. Even the internal advancement assessment wasn't necessarily simple.
The steamed buns needed more time to cook. Faced with the young girl's question, Xia Yu didn't answer directly. Instead, he turned around, took out a box of fresh eggs wrapped in cling film, from where they stored the ingredients.
"Use eggs to make a dish. It can be a pastry or anything else, so long as it satisfies me."
Handing a box of eggs to the young girl, Xia Yu said this.
"Egg... dish?"
Sen Tian Makoto tilted her head, fingers touching her bright red lower lip, not quite understanding Xia Yu's intention.
Make an egg dish and gain his approval?
And then?
The young girl didn't know that Xia Yu was, in fact, preparing her for the transfer student exam—specifically, a practice and warm-up for the exam.
Meeting Xia Yu's calm eyes, Sen Tian Makoto nodded after a brief consideration, "I can do it, Yu."
"Even though I'm not sure what you're thinking right now, if you say you're going to help me, then you definitely are helping me. By the way, after failing the Far Moon selection last time, it's been two years since you've tasted my cooking. This time, I'll show you my progress! I said I haven't given up, and I haven't!"
Sen Tian Makoto became serious suddenly.
Xia Yu quietly stepped back to the kitchen door, silently observing the pondering Sen Tian Makoto. He was quite curious—what dish would she make with eggs?
Be it Western, Japanese, or Chinese, eggs were the most basic ingredient.
Pastries?
That seemed the most likely, given her specialization, and eggs could be used to make many delicious pastries.
If the story followed its natural course, in the transfer exam at the end of March for Far Moon High School, Tiqie Helinai would use an egg to scare away all the candidates except Xingping Chuangzhen.
He hoped to help Sen Tian Makoto appear in that exam hall and successfully pass the assessment.
This was also a form of compensation, a way of repaying debts from the past.
Ending that relationship due to forces beyond his control and leaving a good girl hanging for so long made Xia Yu feel guilty.
Moreover, wouldn't it be interesting for Sen Tian Makoto to go to Far Moon in his stead?
Xia Yu started to daydream.
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