Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe-Chapter 80 Jasmine Milk Green, Watermelon Coconut

The food truck stopped, and as soon as Lin Chen opened the service window, he saw over ten customers walking towards him.

Some familiar faces even waved and greeted him with a smile.

"??"

He glanced at the time, it wasn’t even ten yet, why were people coming so early?

"Good evening, Lin, I’m here for some barbecue!"

"When can we eat, do we need to wait a bit?"

"I heard there’s milk tea for sale, saw videos online saying it’s super delicious, I’m craving for it."

"Is the barbecue of Great Xia different from other barbecues?"

"What about bingfen, do you have bingfen today?"

The diners were enthusiastically filled with anticipation as they spoke.

"Yes, we have bingfen, definitely do. Unless there’s an accident, we’ll sell it every day. But I need to prepare the milk tea ingredients first; when Lucas comes, he can start selling bingfen."

"Alright, no rush, take your time!"

"I’ve never seen how milk tea is made before, I want to learn and see if I can make it at home."

Lin Chen didn’t mean to keep any secrets. Without specific ratios and procedures, making great-tasting milk tea is practically unlikely.

For this, he specifically used a voucher on the way to get a classic milk tea recipe and then added flavors based on this basic formula.

With limited time today, the focus was still on barbecue, so only a traditional milk green tea was prepared, along with fruit tea.

It’s summer now, so there must be some cooling and refreshing drinks, undoubtedly watermelon and coconut.

Watermelon coconut milk and watermelon green coconut tea, the former uses coconut milk, and the latter coconut water.

Both are simple and easy-to-make fruit teas, given it’s the first time selling them, with limited experience, the simpler the menu, the better.

In addition to Lucas in charge of drawing in customers and making bingfen, Lin Chen is responsible for the barbecue, so having too many types of milk tea is truly unmanageable.

The supermarket here doesn’t offer a wide variety of teas, so he bought some jasmine green tea with a strong flavor based on the clerk’s recommendation and online reviews; these come in tea bags.

There’s a particular way to brew tea; if brewed too long, it gets a bitter taste, affecting the flavor, while brewing too short or at insufficient temperature won’t release the tea aroma, also affecting the taste.

Jasmine green tea is not suitable for high-temperature brewing; the water temperature should be between 65-70 degrees, and ice cubes need to be prepared in advance to lock in the tea aroma.

The ratio of tea, hot water, and ice cubes is 1:25:15.

65-70 degree hot water is easily recognizable; small bubbles slightly emerge at the bottom, not dense, and it feels hot on the skin but not painful.

If a thermometer is available, it becomes even more convenient.

Into the brewed hot water, pour the pre-weighed jasmine green tea, stir, soak for ten minutes, remove the tea bags, and add ice cubes to cool.

The tea aroma releases in hot water and will also dissipate in it, so adding ice cubes quickly cools it down and locks in the aroma.

Once the tea is ready, the subsequent steps are almost effortless.

For milk green tea, you can adjust the tea to milk ratio between 3:1 or 2:1 according to personal taste, differing in whether the tea aroma or milk aroma is stronger.

Then add a little liquid fructose and ice cubes, shake it in a shaker cup about twenty times, and it’s ready to serve.

Once familiar with the process, making a cup of milk green tea only takes ten seconds.

The food truck doesn’t have a sealing machine, so it uses lidded transparent coffee cups as a substitute, which works just as well.

The first cup, of course, goes to him to taste test the flavor first.

As the chilled milk tea enters the mouth, the rich tea aroma burst into the whole palate, followed by a light milk aroma, with a lingering aftertaste.

The addition of milk results in a very smooth and rich overall taste, making it easy to swallow, unlike drinking plain tea, which can be slightly bitter.

There are no other distracting flavors; it’s all about the original taste of the milk and tea.

He added 20g of syrup, slightly too sweet for him, but it might be just right for sweet-toothed foreigners.

Then there’s the two types of fruit tea.

With round, skinned fruits like watermelon, the quickest way to cut is to slice off both ends, letting it stand, then cut along the outer curve to get whole pieces of fruit.

If you work quickly, a few seconds per melon is totally doable.

Bash 1/3 cup of watermelon meat, add 10 grams of fructose, 1/3 coconut milk, and 1/3 ice cubes, shake well with a shaker, and it’s done.

Whether it tastes good entirely depends on the flavor of the coconut milk.

Luckily, thanks to the milk tea craze back home, several well-known brands of coconut cream and coconut milk are available in the supermarkets here, like China-made Fino or coconut milk from Tai Island in the Philippines, perfect for milk and fruit tea.

The other watermelon green coconut is even easier, just replace the coconut milk with coconut water.

Compared to the milk green tea, these two watermelon drinks are much more visually appealing; under the effect of the ice cubes, they gradually form color layers, with the watermelon meat sinking and presenting a light pink hue.

He just placed the last drink on the counter.

"Great! How did you know I was thirsty? Such a tacit understanding."

Lucas, drenched in sweat, ran over from who knows where and grabbed it for a drink.

"?"

Lin Chen, who was about to wash the shaker, speechlessly rolled his eyes.

"That’s a sample, for tasting the flavor. Since you drank it, give some feedback."

"No need to smell it, of course, it’s delicious!"

Without a second thought, Lucas gave a thumbs up: "Everything goes well with watermelon; how could it not be great? Plus, it’s with coconut water, an international health symbol, sure to sell like crazy abroad!"

"Umm..."

Seeing him gulp it down non-stop, a young girl at the front couldn’t resist and raised her hand, pointing to the other watermelon coconut milk.

"Can I buy that cup?"

She witnessed the entire production by Lin Chen, without any strange ingredients, just watermelon, coconut milk, and syrup, combined with icy cold ice cubes, it looked delicious.

"No."

Lin Chen shook his head, "I need to taste it myself to see if adjustments are necessary before officially selling it. No rush, miss, I’ll make another one for you."

"Me too, me too!"

"I want that one with coconut water, two cups!"

"I’ll have one of each flavor, who knows when I’ll have the chance again after today."

"What? Today only? Then count me in for one of each!"

"Weren’t you going to sell barbecue tonight? Where’s the barbecue?"

"Oh right, there’s barbecue too, I almost forgot."

Even before starting the business, the customers were scrambling to buy milk tea, evidently prepared from having seen its popularity online.

"Take it easy, one at a time. I’ll first show this guy how to make milk tea, and later, you can get it directly from him."

Lin Chen wiped the sweat off his forehead, quickly demonstrating the jasmine milk green and watermelon coconut milk recipes to Lucas, verbally instructing him to switch coconut water for the watermelon green coconut tea.