At that time, I earned a salary of four thousand a month, and my daily expenses were just a round trip on the bus and subway. So I first learned about the brand Jin Cha Wang and the eponymous competition, as well as the similar competition process each year. I spent money to buy samples of their coarse tea, medium coarse tea, fine tea (tea powder as fine as dust), K tea, and Jin Phoenix, all of which were in five-pound packages. In fact, when I previously worked at "Guan Ren Tea Affairs," a staff member from the Jin Cha Wang brand had handed me a promotional flyer, added me on WeChat, and sent me a rough teaching video, which briefly introduced the properties and effects of each type of tea, but the master in the video did not specify the exact grams needed.

So I used my understanding of tea to create a blend, and then followed the method that my fellow townsman Amin had told me to brew it. When the tea soup was ready, I measured a fixed amount of tea soup and added a fixed amount of light milk according to the method I learned at Guan Ren Tea Affairs. After tasting it, it seemed to be quite different from the product of Brother Bin's Yuanyang Wang. By the way, the concept of hot milk tea and iced milk tea is different; hot tea soup appears a dark red color, at which point the tea polyphenols are in a free state, while during the cooling process, more tea polyphenols are produced, resulting in a dense state that appears a yellowish earthy red. Therefore, for the same amount of iced milk tea, the tea flavor is stronger, the tea aroma is richer, and the aftertaste is more pronounced compared to hot milk tea. After cooling, it was indeed comparable to the product of Yuanyang Wang. At that time, being inexperienced, I confidently thought that if I signed up for the Jin Cha Wang competition, I would definitely win the championship.

After that, I almost made a portion of iced milk tea every night and stored it in the fridge to freeze. The next morning, I would use a glass bottle that had leftover whiskey to take it back to the company to drink during breaks. Sometimes I would share it with my colleagues. They might not have a deep understanding of milk tea, and they didn't even have a standard to judge it, so they couldn't determine its quality. They asked me to serve a portion for the store manager in charge to try, and the answer I got was simply three words: "a bit sweet."

At that time, the kitchen supervisor in the store was 63 years old, with many years of experience not only in cooking but also in understanding the products from the water bar. So brewing tea was a piece of cake for him. I also confidently poured him a cup, and after tasting it, he just casually said, "It's okay."

One time, my mother's vocational school classmate, Aunt Mo, saw that the restaurant was near the elementary school on Wende Road where she worked, so she brought friends to dine and ordered a cup of iced milk tea from the store. I happened to be on break at that time. Interestingly, the milk tea was served in a glass bottle, with a bucket of ice at the bottom to keep the milk tea cold for a long time. I let Aunt Mo try the one I made, and she responded with "a bit sweet." I had already poured her order into my own cup, took a sip, and shamelessly said, "Yours is sweeter than mine." Aunt Mo then tried her own order and found it to be true.

Later, some customers said the milk tea was too sweet and they couldn't taste the tea flavor. So the store manager explained the situation to the old master in Hong Kong, and then they brought in staff from Jie Rong with samples of tea powder to conduct blends in different proportions, allowing the manager and staff to try them together before finally deciding on a solution.

After that, I almost made a portion of iced milk tea every night and stored it in the fridge to freeze. The next morning, I would use a glass bottle that had leftover whiskey to take it back to the company to drink during breaks. Sometimes I would share it with my colleagues. They might not have a deep understanding of milk tea, and they didn't even have a standard to judge it, so they couldn't determine its quality. They asked me to serve a portion for the store manager in charge to try, and the answer I got was simply three words: "a bit sweet."

At that time, the kitchen supervisor in the store was 63 years old, with many years of experience not only in cooking but also in understanding the products from the water bar. So brewing tea was a piece of cake for him. I also confidently poured him a cup, and after tasting it, he just casually said, "It's okay."

One time, my mother's vocational school classmate, Aunt Mo, saw that the restaurant was near the elementary school on Wende Road where she worked, so she brought friends to dine and ordered a cup of iced milk tea from the store. I happened to be on break at that time. Interestingly, the milk tea was served in a glass bottle, with a bucket of ice at the bottom to keep the milk tea cold for a long time. I let Aunt Mo try the one I made, and she responded with "a bit sweet." I had already poured her order into my own cup, took a sip, and shamelessly said, "Yours is sweeter than mine." Aunt Mo then tried her own order and found it to be true.

Later, some customers said the milk tea was too sweet and they couldn't taste the tea flavor. So the store manager explained the situation to the old master in Hong Kong, and then they brought in staff from Jie Rong with samples of tea powder to conduct blends in different proportions, allowing the manager and staff to try them together before finally deciding on a solution.