The Cherry Jam competition was set for June 28, and with less than half a month until the competition, having confirmed the company’s spot in the contest, Cheng Su began to work intensively on jam-making with several technicians as soon as Ning Ge and Old Liu returned with cherries procured from Qingcheng.
Cheng Su had previously mentioned she wanted each technician to come up with two sets of procedures for making jam. Everyone submitted their proposals one by one. Upon reviewing them, she noticed that the plans were quite similar, and the ingredients were almost identical, mostly based on the company’s existing jam-making processes.
Cheng Su also devised her own plan. She said, "Now that we have the cherries, let’s all use your proposals to make jams and have everyone evaluate and vote. We’ll write down the pros and cons, and then we’ll collect the advantages and refine them in a unified manner. We must revise them to create the best, most perfect set of jam-making procedures. What do you say?"
"Okay!" There were no objections; instead, there was some enthusiasm and readiness to get started.
Everyone dressed up neatly and began to work. Since there were several sets of plans, they followed them sequentially. Cheng Su also followed through with her plan, which was different from theirs, as she removed the cherry pits first.
This procedure was also troublesome; cherries are small, and the pits had to be removed first, which took quite a bit of time.
Moreover, the pit was not removed during cooking but by first slicing the cherries with a small knife and then digging out the pits. One might ask, how many cuts are needed to excavate enough cherries to fill a bottle of cherry jam? How much manpower and material resources does it require?
To address everyone’s doubts, Cheng Su explained that to perform well in the competition, the procedure must be refined and perfect. Mass production methods can’t compare to small-scale precision, otherwise, how does quality over quantity come about?
So, when it comes to large-scale cherry jam production in the future, it certainly won’t involve slowly removing pits from each cherry one by one before cooking; instead, the pits will be strained out after boiling.
Cheng Su had another point that differed from everyone else: the selection of ingredients. Qingcheng had several kinds of cherries, and Ning Ge, being generous, had bought several varieties for everyone to choose from.
In selecting ingredients, everyone opted for large, bright red, sweet cherries without a hint of sourness, which were particularly sweet.
However, Cheng Su did not. She also chose large ones, but not all sweet. She chose ones that were red with a hint of yellow-green, which tasted sweet with a touch of sourness, where the sweetness surpassed the sourness.
Several technicians were a bit puzzled and even curious. Isn’t sweetness good enough? Why does this boss insist on choosing fruits that aren’t fully sweet?
However, they also knew that it was the success of Cheng Su’s pineapple jam that allowed the company to thrive. They could even say that this jam trend was led by her.
Therefore, they dared not question her or underestimate her, knowing she was considered a pioneer in jam-making. There’s definitely a reason behind her choice of ingredients, and she would surely explain it in due time.
Thus, they all silently followed their own procedural plans, waiting to see the real results when the jam was finished.
Cheng Su did not explain either; she had no intention of explaining now. Once the cherry jam was made, and everyone had tasted it, they would naturally understand the differences.
But actually, just think about it: if the fruit is all sweet and then sugar is added, the resulting jam would be purely sweet and cloying. After eating too much, it would become sickening.
Whereas the sweet and sour combination, when cooked, would naturally result in a product that is sweet and sour. Which one would be more appealing?