Chapter 396 (1/2)

Early Summer Fruit

Since then, Jin and Elsa spent half of their days in Kaina Village and half on Horai Island.

On one such day, Jin brought a basket full of fruit to Kaina Village.

“Big brother, are these what you called plumes?”

“Yeah, that’s right. They grow natively further south in the Klein kingdom, but I’m hoping they can be grown in the village. ”

“Are they tasty?”

They were a round yellowish green fruit, about 3 cm in diameter.

“Hmm, they might be sour as is. They’re meant to be salted or candied. ”

Plumes were a type of plum. Quinta had originally found the fruit. Jin bought a lot of them in Horai Island. He did so to make umeboshi, dried fermented plums.

He brought some of them to Kaina village because he thought that if the villagers liked them, he would start growing them there.

After washing them with water and removing any dirt, they were normally wiped with alcohol to remove germs, but Jin replaced this step with his magic “sterilization”.

Then, they were put in a bottle, filled with salt equal to about 18% of their weight, and then a stone weighted cover was placed on top of them. This cover weighed about double the weight of the plums.

Once plum vinegar rose in a few days, the weighted cover was switched out for a lighter one.

The plums were then taken out in the middle of summer, dried for three days and nights, and then put back into their plum vinegar to make dried pickled plums.

This was the umeboshi making method Jin had mastered at the orphanage. Mold was more likely to grow the lower the salt content, but the plums would keep for years with the 18% ratio he used.

Plus, if plums washed and sterilized in the same manner were covered with the same amount of sugar instead of salt and stored in a bottle, plum extract would seep out due to osmotic pressure, and the sugar would dissolve in it.

The sugar in the bottle needed to be shaken occasionally so that mold didn’t grow, but once it was completely dissolved, the plum extract was ready to drink.

If watered down with cold water, it was very delicious on a hot summer day.

Jin made these two types of plum products in both Horai Island and Kaina Village.

He was instructing Sarah on how to do so. At the same time, he taught Mine how as well.

“It’s quite neat how you make all this Jin. I’ve preserved fruit in sugar before, but why are you using salt? ”

It seemed it was Mine’s first time hearing about umeboshi.

Normally, plumes were used to make jam in the south of Klein. Sour fruit was delicious when made into jam.

Since Horai Island had begun to produce distilled spirits, they were already using the fruit to make plum wine.

This practice had yet to travel to Kaina village however. This was because distilled spirits were uncommon in this world.

Returning to what was happening.

Jin took out a different fruit he’d procured. “Query fruit”, which was basically a type of cherry.

He had gotten Reiko to gather them for him, because he didn’t have the time to gather them himself.

The query trees that grew around the village of Kaina were mountain cherry blossoms with only small fruit, but Jin (well Reiko) managed to procure large edible cherries Quinta had located in the Leonard Kingdom.

“Hanna, try one of these”

“Okay”

Hanna said to Jin, putting a cherry in her mouth,

“YUM!”

She raised her voice happily.

“Because we have so many, let’s share them with Martha too. Oh and they’re even more delicious when cooled in the snow room. ”

“Okay!”

After seeing Hanna’s beaming face, Jin naturally smiled too.

At teatime that day, Jin, Hanna, Martha, Mine and Elsa all enjoyed the cherries together.

“These are yummy, huh Jin? Are they also queries? They’re similar, but their pits are so big.

Martha liked them as well.

“Yeah, they’re queries, but their variety seem different. I’d like to see about growing them here in Kaina. ”

“Good idea. I’ll talk to the mayor about it later. ”

“Thanks Martha”

Jin thought it would be best if Martha discussed it to the village chief, Giebec, because the chief knew more about the village’s agriculture than Jin.

There were dozens of seedlings and some mature trees he could bring to the village later to plant.

He was not only preparing for the technology expo, but also thinking about the future of Kaina Village.

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“Hmm, it’s difficult”

Elsa, on the other hand, was struggling to make magic tools on Horai Island.

“What would I do if I were Jin?”

She did her best to put this question out of her mind.