Return to the small mountain village in 1986

Chapter 103
After getting this improved blunderbuss, Gao Mingcheng's first thought was to go hunting in the mountains and try his marksmanship.

However, Grandma Xi reminded him to extract the tea seeds for oil, and there was not much lard at home.

So Gao Mingcheng resisted the impulse in his heart and decided to take the tea seeds for oil extraction first.

He picked up too many tea seeds, and after removing the shells, there were still four big bags, about five to six hundred catties. With his own manpower, he couldn't do it. If it was called a tractor, it would be more expensive.

So he asked someone to borrow a flatbed cart, put the tea seeds on the flatbed cart, and just pushed the cart to the town.

There is an oil mill in the town, which can press rapeseed oil, soybean oil and tea seed oil.

Now is the harvest season of tea seed oil, so all the tea seed oil is squeezed.Before approaching, Gao Mingcheng smelled a strong fragrance of camellia oil.

Outside the oil press, there is a large milling plate, and a donkey is tied to the side of the milling plate, and it is being used for the pulling force of the donkey to rotate and grind.

The first step of pressing the tea seed oil is to dry it 100%. This step has been achieved by Gao Mingcheng at home. The second step is to put the tea oil seeds on the milling plate and then grind them into powder.

Then, after the camellia seed is crushed into powder, it is poured into the steamer and steamed. This process takes about an hour. After steaming, the oil can be squeezed out, and the camellia oleifera powder will be particularly soft and easy to squeeze out the oil.

Gao Mingcheng moved the tea seeds off the flatbed, put them on the edge of the mill, and then negotiated with the owner of the oil mill.

There are two ways to charge in this oil mill. The first is that the oil mill leaves tea dry, and you can leave directly with the tea oil.

The second is that you want tea dry, and then give the oil press a certain amount of wages.

Gao Mingcheng had thought about this a long time ago, so he chose the second option, and the people in the oil mill began to weigh the tea seeds.

And experienced oil extractors will also check the dryness of the tea seeds you bring, and if they are not dry enough, they will not squeeze them for you.

Because such tea seeds have a lot of water, the quality of the squeezed oil is not very good, and the quantity is small.

There is an approximate figure for how much oil can be produced from a hundred catties of tea seeds. If there is less oil produced, disputes will arise.

After weighing, it's time to wait for the tea seeds to be ground into powder.

During this process, Gao Mingcheng wandered around in the oil press. Although the oil press looks simple and lacks modern machinery, it has existed for many years.

Someone is in charge of crushing the tea seeds, someone is in charge of steaming the tea seed powder, and someone is in charge of filling the steamed tea seed powder into a round bamboo stick oil ring with straw as the bottom to make tea oil cakes.

Don't underestimate this step. If the thickness of the tea oil cake is not uniform, it will affect the oil yield. An experienced master can use an iron spoon to scoop up an appropriate amount of tea seed powder for packaging, and the packaging method is quite Familiar and fast.

After the oil tea cake is made, the next step is the last step-oil extraction!
Gao Mingcheng stood in front of the oil bed, looking at the oil bed that had been through the years.

The oil bed is chiseled from a single piece of camphor wood over a hundred years old, which is the "host" of the entire oil mill.An oil bed with a length of 2 meters and a width of 0.4 meters is dug out in the center of the tree, and the tea oil cake is filled in the oil bed. After the tea oil cake is packed, it can be pressed.

Squeezing is the most labor-intensive part of the entire oil extraction process. Because there is no machinery, the most traditional extrusion method is used. The masters drive wooden stakes of uneven length and thickness into the cracks of the oil bed for extrusion. After a while, Wisps of tea oil slowly drip from the oil bed, and the whole oil pressing workshop will be filled with a refreshing fragrance.

Gao Mingcheng spent nearly five hours in the oil mill before all the tea seeds he brought were squeezed out. During the last step, Gao Mingcheng still felt that the oil extractor was not strong enough, so he went up to drive the wooden stake into it himself. The oil bed, with his efforts, at least a few catties of camellia oil was added!

Gao Mingcheng was proud of this.

Even the masters of the oil mill gave Gao Mingcheng a thumbs up and praised him for his strength.

After loading the tea oil, he removed the tea leaves from the oil bed and piled them together on a flatbed cart. After paying the wages, Gao Mingcheng pushed the flatbed cart to Gaojia Village.

These tea leaves are good things. They can be used as natural shampoo, and can also be fertilized, and then fertilized the crops. Using this kind of fertilizer can increase fat, kill insects and increase sweetness.

It is better than ordinary manure.

Otherwise, why would the oil mill be willing to keep tea dry?It is to be sold for money.

Since it is a good thing, Gao Mingcheng himself is willing to stay.He has reclaimed two acres of land next to the new house. The family has a small population and does not raise poultry. They are short of fertilizers for farming.

In addition to these two acres of land, he plans to continue to reclaim a few acres of land. Of course, these lands will not be used to grow vegetables, but to grow some fruits.

Such as watermelon, melon, grape, peach, persimmon and so on.

He planned to go to the market to buy fruit seedlings after the Spring Festival, and then arrange all his favorite food first.

After Gao Mingcheng returned home, it was almost dark.

Grandma Xi was cooking in the kitchen, and when she saw him coming back, she immediately asked him how much tea oil he squeezed out with concern.

Gao Mingcheng drank a bowl of tea first, and then said: "Twenty catties of tea oil are squeezed out of one hundred catties of dry tea seeds."

The little grandma groaned and said, "That's not bad. I heard people say that one hundred catties of dried tea seeds can only be squeezed out to about eighteen catties. If you can squeeze out twenty catties, it's pretty good. "

Gao Mingcheng smiled slightly. The traditional pressing method has a relatively low oil yield. If he hadn't put in a little effort at the end, it would have weighed up to nineteen catties.

Gao Mingcheng put the tea oil into the house, piled the tea leaves on the wall, and returned the flatbed cart.

After returning home, seeing that there was still some time before eating, Gao Mingcheng simply took out a hammer and began to crush the dried tea leaves.

The tea dry after the oil is squeezed is like a hard cake made of cement, ordinary people can't break it at all, and need to use a hammer to break it bit by bit.

Whether it is used to wash hair or make fertilizer, it must be crushed first, otherwise a large piece of hard tea dry will be useless to you.

In the kitchen, the sound of cooking with a spatula sounded, and under the eaves, the hammer beat frequently. The two sounds interacted together, weaving into the most ordinary sound of life.

As the iron pan was half filled with water, making a sizzling sound, Grandma Xiao shouted, "It's time to eat!"

"Hey." Gao Mingcheng got up and walked towards the kitchen.

Gao Zhuang was lighting the fire, and was about to withdraw the unburned firewood from the stove, and buried it in the ashes below, allowing it to be extinguished bit by bit.

(End of this chapter)