#561 Tea Party at the Farm

All right!

I’ll do my best to show Veil the wonders of matcha!

First, by making a cake!

Mix flour, eggs, milk, butter, and an unhealthy amount of sugar with the usual tools to make the batter!

Then add matcha powder into the mix!

“Whaaaaaat?! What are you doing, Master? Did you just add aojiru to the cake batter?!”

Like I said, it’s matcha, not aojiru!!!

I know it’s hard to tell the difference in powder form, but they’re different!

And I’m going to make you understand that!

I put it in the oven to bake, and...!

Ta-da! Matcha cake!

“The cakeeeeeeeeee! It’s greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!”

Cakes are usually pale yellowish and covered in whipped cream and icing.

Matcha cake deviates from that standard.

Veil is bamboozled by its lush color, as rich and green as fresh leaves, a color that is unthinkable for a standard dessert!

“Are you sure this is safe to eat? Doesn’t green mean the food is infested with mold?!”

How rude.

I assure you it’s safe to eat, so go ahead and try it.

“This is a bitter cake that caters to adults, huh?”

“Ah! Platy!”

Before I knew it, my wife, Platy, had appeared with Junior!

She, too, has an advanced food sensor, and whenever I try to make a new dish, she always sniffs it out. But...

Is she perhaps busy looking after Junior lately, that’s why she shows up after Veil?

Still, her timing is impeccable, like now.

Platy tastes the cake without hesitation.

As winter deepens, her baby bump becomes even more prominent. 

“...Now this. This is a mature taste.”

She starts her food report.

“The cake has a refreshing bitterness that you don’t usually find in cakes, and I attribute it to the new ingredient that made the whole cake green. It’s like you took a normal cake and added a bitter taste to cater to an adult’s palette...Oh, do you want some too, Junior? Okay, say ahh...”

Junior, who has grown up and can now eat various foods, also took a bite of the matcha cake.

He makes a face that says ‘it tastes different.’

“Anyway, this green cake’s taste is for adults! If you can’t appreciate that, you’re still a child, Veil!” 

Shwing! Points Platy at Veil, making her flinch a bit.

“Who said it tastes bad? It’s tasty! *nom nom* Mmm! So good!”

“You want another bite, Junior? Okay, ahhh...”

“Cake itself is delicious, but it’s also good with a hint of bitterness! The sweetness is subtle and elegant!”

Now, it’s Veil doing the food report. 

But I won’t stop here just because they liked the matcha cake.

Matcha chocolate!

Matcha pancakes!

Matcha steamed bread!

And matcha cheesecakeeeeeeeee!

“WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!”

The desserts and others treats I’ve introduced to my farm are reborn with the color of matcha. 

You know, just like villains from the past who became even more corrupt and were revived.

Is matcha the zombie powder that revives sweets?!

No way.

Well, you can still add it to any mixture, so matcha can be easily combined with anything.

“What’s gotten into you, Master? Isn’t this too much at once, no matter how you look at it?”

“You’ve gotten Junior all confused for making too much! What are you going to do about this? You know babies can be very sensitive to the slightest stimulation!”  

I was just warming up...

Besides, this is nothing to be surprised about.

You’ll know why soon.

After making all this sweet stuff...

“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The girls from all over the farm rush to the kitchen, lured by the sweet aroma.

It was already a predetermined thing, almost like fate!

“You’re right. This always ends up happening...!”

“So, preparing in advance is just readying for the future, huh?”

Exactly.

And so, the matcha sweets festival began.

It looks like something FU**YA might hold in early spring, but I am the kind of person who never cuts corners.

I won’t forget serving the one indispensable partner for eating sweets.

And that’s...!

“Tea!”

Yes, sweets and tea together make for a delicious afternoon tea time.

A tea party is only a tea party when sweet confections and delicious tea come together.

Without further ado, I prepare the tea.

Again, I don’t have a teapot at the moment, so I have to make do with what I have.

I strain the tea leaves with a colander and pour the tea into a cup.

“Golden Syrup!!!”

After chanting the magic words that make the tea delicious, all that’s left is for the girls to add sugar or milk to their liking.

I was worried that the matcha sweets and the tea would be redundant, but fortunately, they went well together.

Thus begins the farm’s first authentic tea party that hosts a variety of tea!

The sweet-toothed girls look at the black tea they were served and...

“...What is this?”

“Brown water... Looks unhealthy...”

Huh?

They’re baffled by the tea’s strange color!

But it looks similar to the whiskey Bacchus makes!

I thought this would be nothing new to them...

Oh, right. Girls don’t drink whiskey. Only wine or cocktails.

And then they eat a lot of sweet stuff.

Yeah, no wonder then! 

“Hmph, what a bunch of children! This is why girls who have never had a baby are hopeless!” 

Huh? Platy?

“Lady Platy’s always trying to assert dominance by bringing up her parenting experience!” 

“The time I’ve spent living with my husband is no joke. The overall experience and trust I’ve accumulated are different from yours! Listen, I’ve had his cooking many times! And not once has it ever tasted bad! So I can say with confidence that everything you see here tastes amazing! Be it this glass of water! Let me show you! ...Ow, that’s hot!”

That’s what happens when you sip down a cup of freshly brewed tea like milk after a hot bath.

“...But it’s delicious! The water has a faint but distinctive taste... It’s astringent and mellow! Not to mention, it complements the sweetness of the cake! Just delicious! Water only dilutes the cake’s flavor, but it’s a way to enhance the flavor of the pastry by cleansing your palate with every sip!”

As one would expect from someone who prides herself on her extensive experience, her review was elaborate.

The other girls sip their tea fearfully as if pressured, and...

“It’s good!”

“What a refined taste!”

“I didn’t know there was such a way to eat cake! Lord Saint’s world truly is profound!”

Everyone was impressed by the combination of tea and cake, all thanks to Platy’s expert food report, and happily indulged themselves in it.

As I thought, Platy is my indispensable partner as a wife.

And she’s even carrying our second child this time.

...Hm? Wait a minute.

“Isn’t caffeine bad for pregnant women? Platy! You can’t have that much tea! Maybe it’s okay in moderation, but at least hold back until our child is born!!!” 

Platy could only grumble after being banned from having tea during her pregnancy.

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• im no tea connoisseur(i love my black tea with brown sugar though), but my searches showed me that Golden Syrup is a popular sweetener for tea and a vegan one at that.
• FUJIYA （不二家）is known for its wide range of snacks. if you've had Japanese snacks and have seen a brown-haired girl in pigtails with her tongue like :9 on the packaging, that's their mascot peko chan
• Kuzu no Ryu Sen from chapter 558 is a reference to one of rurouni kenshin's moves, 九頭龍閃 (lit: nine-headed dragon flash, apparently inspired by yamata-no-orochi). in the novel's version, instead of 'dragon,' it was 'nine bean/ed dragon flash' (九豆竜閃).
• Mouryou no Hako (lit: Cube of Evil Spirits among many other translations) mentioned in 559 is a 90's mystery/horror novel. it seems there are many media adaptations of it, but I've never seen any of them so i cant comment on why the reference was made.

these are the references i remembered to explain from the top of my head. it was a stressful week due to my thesis, which was also why i could only mass-upload the three chapters on wed. i know i still have one more pending, but it will be up by this weekend. thank you as always, everyone :)