Chapter 138 (2/2)

When Fang Yizheng saw Fang ruxiu and listened to Fang Changfu's words, he kept silent, so he comforted: ”sister, don't be sad. Anyway, brother is fine. It should be like going up the mountain to play for a few days. Besides, it's good to use it to burn a fire after drying.”

”Yes, sister, we're both idle at home anyway. We'll do two days of work in the mountains and exercise as exercise.” Fang Yicheng also comforted.

”You don't have to comfort me.” Fang ruxiu said with a smile, ”are you all worried that I can't think about it? Don't worry, it won't, and this tea seed can really be used to extract oil.”

When they heard Fang ruxiu's words, they all looked at her curiously.

Fang ruxiu explained, ”it's strange that I didn't explain it clearly to you before. In fact, this tea seed can extract oil, which I saw in an ancient book: there is a tree named Camellia oleifera, which is as low as an umbrella, with light brown and smooth bark, oval leaves and serrated edges. Its fruit has a thick shell, seeds in it, and its color is black. Its son is called tea seed, which can extract oil, and its oil color is clear and fragrant.”

”That day I went to the mountain and found the Camellia oleifera. I didn't dare to believe it at first, but then I knocked it open with a stone to confirm my guess. I confirmed that this is the legendary Camellia oleifera, because I specially asked my eldest brother to pick it on the mountain together.”

Fang Ru embroidered solemnly and blustered Fang Changfu. Fang Changfu said, ”is this true? But if so, there were tea trees in the mountains when I was very young, and many people cut them for firewood because they were useless. If I had known earlier, it would be great.”

”Yes, so I should read more books. If I didn't see this occasionally in books, I would have seen it that day and couldn't recognize it.” Fang ruxiu took this opportunity to preach to Fang Yicheng.

In fact, Fang Yizheng and Fang Yicheng are already admired by each other's ruxiu. No wonder, my sister knows everything. It's because she has read a lot of books. They didn't think about how many books Fang ruxiu can read at the age of 12. They just feel that Fang ruxiu knows a lot and works hard.

After drying for a few days, most of these tea seeds burst open. Fang ruxiu had told ye that as long as the tea seeds, the outer shells of those tea seeds are used for fire or other purposes. At the right time, cultivating straw mushrooms requires these straw shells and sawdust. Fang ruxiu thinks that after the tea seed shells are rotten, they can be used to cultivate straw mushrooms.

I've been busy for several days. I've spread out a yard of tea seeds before, but the tea seeds that are really used to extract oil are not much compared with the tea seeds, but they are not less. There are four loads in total. That's four loads of tea seeds in several days. I just don't know how much oil these tea seeds can extract, but in Fang ruxiu's memory, It looks like 40% to half.

Here, four loads of tea seeds are said to be 300 kg, that is to say, at least more than 100 kg of oil can be squeezed out, which makes Fang ruxiu happier.

Oil in this era is a very precious thing. When I first came here, the Fang family fried one dish at a time, but I was only willing to take a carrot head, dip it in the oil pot, and then put a circle of oil on the pot, just dip it in the bottom of the pot.

So at that time, the dishes of the Fang family were not delicious at all. After all, the saying goes that more oil is not bad. Of course, boiled cabbage and radish without oil and water are not delicious.

”Dad, where is there a place to squeeze oil near here?” Fang ruxiu asked.

”There's one in our town. We'll just pull it by ox cart,” Fang Changfu said.

”That's good. Let's pull it over tomorrow.” Fang ruxiu said.

”OK.” Fang Changfu nodded and agreed. He also wanted to have a look at the so-called tea seed oil. After all, ordinary peanut oil is almost fifteen Wen a kilogram, while rapeseed oil is ten Wen a kilogram. Even if the tea oil is no longer worth money, it still needs eight Wen a kilogram? If you can squeeze more than a hundred kilograms of oil here, it will be equivalent to more than a dozen silver.

Early the next morning, Fang Changfu drove the cattle to squeeze oil from the town. In ancient times, there were many oil pressing processes. First, it was fried. After frying, it was crushed. After crushing, it was steamed. After steaming, the oil powder was put into the iron ring there to make oil cakes, and then put into the chamber to start the final pressing process.

This process is all manual, so it takes a long time. It was not until the evening that Fang Changfu came back from town with an ox cart.

Fang ruxiu was the first to greet him and said, ”Dad, why did you come back so late? Even those who went to school in Yizhi came back soon.”

”Our family used a lot of tea seeds to crush this time, so it took a long time,” Fang Changfu said.

”Oh, did the master of the oil mill say anything?” Fang ruxiu asked again.

”I asked a question or two, but they didn't take it to heart.” Fang Changfu said, ”many people in this place take some strange things to extract oil. Many people even pick the small tea seeds on the tea tree to extract oil.”

”Oh.” Fang ruxiu nodded, and then helped Fang Changfu unload the tea oil and tea cakes from the ox cart.

This tea oil is filled with five large iron barrels in that small iron barrel, and there is another half a barrel. Fang Changfu said that each barrel can hold 30 kilograms of oil, that is to say, more than 160 kilograms of oil were squeezed out of the more than 300 kilograms of tea seeds.