During the break after the plan was revised, I went to a nearby hair salon to get a haircut. I cut off my long hair that I had been growing for more than half a year, hoping that a new hairstyle would improve my image and attract the opposite sex.

After that, I returned to the store as a customer to have afternoon tea. I indeed wore a mask and dressed in a very unique outfit, so the staff at the reception did not recognize me right away. I entered the store, scanned the code, and ordered a set meal, which was a pineapple bun with pork chop, lettuce, and tomato filling, cut open on both sides, accompanied by large fries and a cup of hot milk tea.

At that time, it was considered hot weather, so I wore short sleeves when going out. I moved around a lot during work and walked quickly, sweating from morning till night. Usually, I would pack iced milk tea in a thermos to take to work, but this time, as a customer, I overlooked the air conditioning temperature in the mall. It’s no wonder that almost all the customers dining in the store every day ordered hot milk tea or hot lemon tea. It’s even less surprising that the table turnover rate on holidays and weekends is shockingly high. If you don’t quickly finish your wonton noodles, you really might feel like you’re freezing into a popsicle.

Speaking of the milk tea, it was smooth on the palate but not as light as water; the tea aroma was incredibly strong, straightforward and impressive. However, afterwards, I didn’t feel any aftertaste, so it can’t be considered perfect. In fact, I even felt it was not as good as when the store first opened. But milk tea is still milk tea; when the store first opened, the iced milk tea made me feel like it had a chocolate flavor, while the key was to highlight the tea flavor. The milk tea I made at home often had a noticeable cocoa flavor, which was a bottleneck I encountered while developing it at that time.

Compared to milk tea, the store's product that was relatively stable was the Hong Kong-style lemon tea. Making it taste good is really simple; its preparation method involves both iced and hot versions. At that time, the store's product was to dilute the tea base of the milk tea with water before adding milk and sugar, then add lemon and sugar. However, I didn’t have a deep understanding of lemon tea at that time, so I only pursued making it taste good, rather than making it visually appealing. Therefore, I continued to explore the path of milk tea.