Push Me Away When I Come, Don't Hold Me Back When I Leave - Chapter 105

Chapter 105: Planning

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Although Chu Suhe was reluctant in her heart, after seeing the expectant look in Xia Ruoming’s eyes, she silently nodded.

After seeing Chu Suhe nod in agreement, Xia Ruoming finally felt relieved and let go of Chu Suhe, walked behind the counter, and carefully inspected the counter equipment.

There were still coffee ground residues in the grinder, perhaps because the previous owner hadn’t planned to continue, so they hadn’t even done the cleaning properly.

After pouring the grounds into her palm, Xia Ruoming took a portion and chewed it twice. As a seasoned coffee enthusiast, Xia Ruoming immediately detected that this was some inferior bean variety, possibly a defective product of some Arabica variety. No wonder they packed up and left so quickly, given that coffee was sold at exorbitant prices in this premium location.

For rebuilding Starry Sky, Xia Ruoming decided to use a combination of Yunnan coffee beans and Colombian coffee beans. Both had their pros and cons. Brazilian beans could also survive in small quantities, but Xia Ruoming always knew that hard coffee wasn’t popular domestically, and soft coffee dominated in all coffee shops, just as it had been in Luo Qingxuan’s Starry Sky.

Yunnan coffee beans produce coffee with low thickness, weak bitterness, and a slight fruity aroma, occupying an important share in the European coffee market. These coffee beans were originally of low quality abroad and were mainly used for instant coffee production, but after long-term cultivation in China, they have become an indispensable part of ground coffee, with a significant market presence in both affordable and high-end coffee.

Although not as intense as Brazilian coffee, Colombian coffee beans remain one of the world’s best coffee bean varieties, far superior to other coffees. After all, it’s one of the few coffee beans named after a country and is also the pioneer of soft coffee. Due to its unique geographical conditions, Colombian coffee beans develop a distinct sweet aroma after roasting, with a sweetness mixed with acidity, relatively mild bitterness, and moderate thickness, creating a sense of understated elegance. If a coffee shop doesn’t have Colombian coffee beans, claiming to be a high-end coffee shop would be laughable.

As for the coffee bean supply, that matter could be left to Luo Qingxuan. Back when she was at Starry Sky, she had tasted Luo Qingxuan’s coffee and ground coffee beans, and the quality was truly impeccable. Even Xia Ruoming thought they were being sold far too cheaply, and she had even wondered if Luo Qingxuan’s small coffee shop was making any profit.

After surveying the coffee shop again, Xia Ruoming came up with a new idea. She planned to transform the first floor into something like an open beverage shop, selling some inexpensive drinks, snacks, and regular coffee beverages, while maintaining seating for in-store customers, similar to the XX Tea Shop on Chunxi Road. The second floor would serve as private rooms, that’s where the real coffee shop would be.

Although there were many beverage shops at this time, there weren’t any brand chains, everyone was operating independently.

For ordinary people, they might not gain any advantage against beverage shops like COCO, but Xia Ruoming was different. She had experience from the future. In the future, Honey City chain stores launched a 2-yuan ice cream that became hugely popular, with chain stores everywhere, but many people didn’t know that the 2-yuan ice cream used inferior ice cream powder. Xia Ruoming had seen analysis reports showing actual profits exceeded 30%.

So a supermarket called Homer came up with an even bigger gimmick: “Fresh Milk Ice Cream”!

That’s right, ice cream made with pure milk, no ice cream syrup, no ice cream powder, 100% milk as the raw material.

Ice cream made with overnight chilled fresh milk, also selling for just 2 yuan per stick. In future big cities, this was something that sold out every day. Homer clearly stated it was overnight chilled fresh milk, but it still sold out.

This thing even trended on Little Green Book for a long time.

Since her shop would also offer lattes and cappuccinos, plus planning to sell milk tea downstairs, overnight chilled fresh milk wouldn’t be in short supply. Luo Qingxuan would never use opened overnight milk in coffee, and neither would Xia Ruoming, so it was perfect to copy the marketing approach from the future.

If that wasn’t enough, she could also wage a price war, focusing on value for money, the same product as yours, but with better quality and one yuan cheaper, directly crushing the neighboring beverage shops. After all, most of those shops were renting their spaces; Xia Ruoming could afford to wait them out, but they couldn’t.

Thinking of this, Xia Ruoming took a wild action, going to the nearby MOMO convenience store to buy two boxes of milk, a pack of sugar, and then took out her Biluochun King tea that she had used to “bribe” the principal, using the coffee machine to brew a pot of tea directly.

If Wu Kejin were here to see Xia Ruoming’s behavior, he would probably curse her for being wasteful. This was first-pick Biluochun King tea, just 100g cost several thousand, and she was using a coffee pot to brew it?

After the Biluochun was brewed, Xia Ruoming poured the tea into a prepared large plastic measuring cup. After doing this, Xia Ruoming heated the milk and added it to the Biluochun according to the ratio she remembered from making English afternoon tea for Jiang Ruhua in the future.

“Want some milk tea, Susu?” Xia Ruoming said as she handed over a small coffee cup filled with steaming milk tea, “But be careful, it’s still quite hot.”

Chu Suhe was already confused when she saw Xia Ruoming suddenly running around, and then became even more bewildered when she saw Xia Ruoming brewing tea with the coffee machine. Although she didn’t know exactly what kind of tea it was, anyone who wasn’t blind could understand the meaning of words like “Special Grade” and “First Grade” printed on the lid.

She didn’t know the actual value of the tea, but she knew this probably wasn’t how good tea should be used, right?

Seeing Chu Suhe staring at her blankly, Xia Ruoming thought Chu Suhe felt the milk tea was too hot, so she took a coffee spoon and started stirring and blowing on Chu Suhe’s milk tea to cool it down, making Chu Suhe’s face turn bright red.

“You, you don’t need to do this, Ruoming.” Chu Suhe grabbed Xia Ruoming’s hand that was stirring the milk tea, “I, I was just thinking about something, not feeling that the milk tea was too hot, Ruoming doesn’t need to be so nice to me…”

Xia Ruoming chuckled softly, put down the coffee spoon, pushed the milk tea in front of Chu Suhe, then picked up her own cup, blew on it gently twice, and took a sip of the milk tea in her hand.

Smooth without astringency, refreshing with a lasting sweet aftertaste, it tasted good even without sugar. Xia Ruoming finally understood what real good tea was like. Compared to the Hextech milk tea from the future that was as sweet as six or seven sugar cubes, this was truly the ultimate milk tea. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to use this recipe for a milk tea shop, anyone who tried to sell this kind of milk tea would probably go bankrupt the next day.

Black tea and green tea remained the mainstream choices for milk tea, with black tea having a softer taste and green tea being more refreshing. From her experience, people choosing milk black tea far outnumbered those choosing milk green tea. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any black or green tea on hand at the moment to experiment with the best recipe.

At this thought, Xia Ruoming suddenly slapped her forehead.

Wait, I have money, don’t I? Why not just do it?

After doubting whether she had gotten senile, Xia Ruoming directly dragged Chu Suhe, who had just taken a sip of milk tea, and rushed off to buy tea leaves.