Chapter 588: 588. Eldest Aunt’s Business Experience_1 Chapter 588: 588. Eldest Aunt’s Business Experience_1 The newly developed tea egg track truly shone with promise–Auntie had only spread three pancakes, and a pot of tea eggs was nearly sold out.
The regulars still stood in front of the empty pot, peeling eggs and leisurely saying to her, “Hongmei, look at you, these delicious tea eggs, bring more pots tomorrow! Just this few, who’s it going to feed? The eggs are so small too!”
What else could she do?
Auntie was quite accepting–every tea egg in the market was this size, after all. That’s because you buy eggs by weight, but sell them by the piece. Wouldn’t she lose out with bigger eggs?
So Song Hongmei immediately put on her practiced woeful look:
“Oh dear, I’d love to use bigger eggs, but have you seen the price eggs are selling for now?”
“These seasoning packets, my niece’s household sells them for twenty a pop! I figured my family really couldn’t eat that much, that’s why I started selling them. Do the math, do you think I’m making any money?”
Oh my! A seasoning packet for twenty–that’s really quite expensive!
But then everyone thought about it and tasted the tea egg again–expensive, but acceptable. To splurge on one every now and then was still feasible.
But if you do the calculations that way, seasoning packets for twenty, eggs at fifty cents each, and a pot of thirty to forty eggs would also cost twenty, not to mention labor and firewood costs…
Even at forty eggs a pot, that’s only sixty bucks. All reckoned, she’s not even making ten!
With that calculation, they really began to believe Song Hongmei.
Regretfully glancing at the pot again, they said, “Then how many of those seasoning packets do you have left? If not, sell me two!”
Auntie thought: Only a fool would sell them!
Firstly, the pot didn’t actually cook forty tea eggs, but forty-nine–because that morning, each of the three family members couldn’t resist eating three each. Auntie thought it was too extravagant and quickly boiled nine more eggs to add to the pot…
It seems she could easily cook fifty the next day as well.
Tomorrow, they absolutely must not eat them at home! Eating too many eggs raises cholesterol–what kind of household eats ?!
Auntie had never lived so lavishly in her life!
Oh my, that’s why she said she couldn’t give away things from Tantan’s family anymore. Whenever she did, their food expenses exceeded the limit. It was a good thing these could be sold!
Moreover, their egg pancake stall wasn’t doing too badly, and these eggs were bought at wholesale prices–they were so small they cost less than fifty cents each, nearer to forty.
Plus, the seasoning packets were a freebie from Tantan, pure profit right there.
Auntie’s mind raced as she calculated, and her hands didn’t stop flipping pancakes either. After buying the tea eggs and still feeling unsatisfied, everyone also came to buy her egg pancakes.
In just a moment, five or six people were already waiting in line.
Initially, her business was nothing remarkable–while it made money, it wasn’t exceptionally successful. But earlier in the year, she had introduced Seventh Uncle to Tantan, and Seventh Uncle, dissatisfied with his family’s pickles, even shared several pickle-making methods!
Though it was a bit more troublesome, it saved a good amount of money!
And it brought in quite a few more customers.
And now this morning, she had attracted quite a crowd with this move!
So, even though the seasoning packets didn’t bring in much profit, Auntie had no intention to sell them.
She just called out, “Hurry up, folks, my niece only brought me twenty packets. Once they’re gone, I’m not selling anymore.”
“Hey, what are you like!” Another regular customer complained, “Those seasoning packets smell so good. Stock up some more. As long as you use them for boiling eggs, we’ll surely buy them. Don’t you have any business sense?”
Auntie raised her voice, “Am I crazy?! With seasoning packets costing twenty bucks each, I buy them and painstakingly boil a pot of eggs only to make less than ten dollars. What kind of business would that be?”
The crowd: …that does make sense.
But they still weren’t satisfied, “Then ask our niece where we can buy these marinade packets? I’ll buy a couple to cook at home.”
While the taste of the tea-flavored eggs was indeed good, it was only so good to a certain extent; buying a couple for personal delight was fine, but more than that wouldn’t do.
The eldest aunt shook her head, “There isn’t any stock left; even the regular customers didn’t manage to buy any.”
The crowd heaved sighs of disappointment.
Caught up in the conversation, and too lazy to move, they simply continued to line up for the egg pancakes.
The eldest aunt: “This isn’t just a marinade packet, it’s clearly a money-making packet!”
At this moment, Xin Jun was also painfully crawling out of bed.
Just yesterday, after hours on the high-speed train and a transfer, he finally arrived home at two in the afternoon.
He had luckily missed most of the farm restaurant’s lunch rush and didn’t have to do any work, just chatting with his parents to pass the time.
There wasn’t much to talk about, really.
His mom looked at his fair skin and the increasingly rosy complexion, unable to utter the insincere words like “you’ve lost weight” or “you look haggard,” even feeling a bit sour, “Where have you been raised to be so radiant and glowing!”
Xin Jun started to laugh, “Didn’t I tell you I’ve been teaching? My routine is incredibly regular, and I’ve been eating with everyone else, so of course, my complexion looks good.”
Xin’s mom still thought he was teaching at a school. She immediately started inquiring anxiously, “Really! So the school’s dining hall is quite good, huh? Do teachers pay for their meals? Are you sure you’ll become permanent next year? I’ve heard there aren’t many teaching positions nowadays, and it could cost some money, right?”
How should he answer that? Given Qiaoqiao’s current situation, it depends on how long he’d need to continue teaching for Song Tan and his family.
But Xin Jun had already made up his mind, even if he couldn’t continue as a tutor, he could still switch jobs!
Not to mention anything else, he’d definitely be more diligent than Zhang Yanping when it came to doing odd jobs or making deliveries up the mountain.
But what he said was modest:
“I’m not sure yet, it’s still a probationary period after all, and I haven’t become that close with anyone at the school yet. Let me figure it out first.”
In the eyes of his parents, a teacher, a doctor, a civil servant–these were all top-tier jobs. The only downside was–
“Didn’t you break up with Qianqian? Why did you find a job in her city? Isn’t our city good enough? It’s closer.”
“Also, the farm products you’ve been talking about sending over the past months are good, but they just can’t be sold at our agritainment; the quantity is too small, and it’s too expensive!”
“Now customers are still reminiscing about the wild vegetables from spring. If it doesn’t work, I might have to go check out that farm myself, strike a cooperation deal.”
Xin Jun thought to himself: If you go there, won’t that be the end of me?
At this point, he adopted a confident posture for bluffing someone:
“Mom, don’t worry; the cooperation deal is already set. They’ve just released a new tea-flavored egg marinade packet, and I went to great lengths to snag a few hundred to test the waters.”
“The twelve thousand you asked for earlier was for buying this. Wait till the express delivery arrives tomorrow, and you give it a try. It’s perfect!”
First of all, their farm stay had its own free-range eggs, which paired with these marinade packets would make it quite normal to sell a tea-flavored egg for a few bucks more.
Moreover, the marinade packets were convenient, durable for storage, and easy to transport, truly suitable for this place.
Most importantly, viewing the abundance of leaves in Song Tan’s courtyard, these marinade packets had a plentiful supply!
It was nothing like the wild vegetables that were scarce, hard to preserve, and as a result, they only managed to prepare a few thousand kilograms in time to give away a portion with each table.