Chapter 78: The Queen of Sweets (3)
It took nearly ten minutes before Victor managed to calm Ashara down. In the end he needed to gently hug her in his arms and pat her back from time to time and she was still very emotional.
They spent what felt like an eternity just sitting in the sun listening to the sound of waves hitting the beach. Finally, Ashara slowly calmed down and realized the situation she was in. She stood up full of panic and looked around but couldn't find any bodyguards nor servants. Even though she knew they were most likely just hidden she felt relieved that nobody was looking at her right now.
She slowly turned her head towards Victor and started fiddling with her hands while looking for words to describe her emotions.
"Victor, I don't know how to handle your behavior sometimes. Nobody has ever treated me or any noble lady I know like you do from time to time. I don't know how to feel when you are that considerate of me, because quite frankly that's not how I was raised and certainly not something I would ever expect from an heir to a large family.
Why are you treating me like that? I don't have anything that would be of much value to you. I just don't understand."
Of course, Victor realized how wrong his behavior seemed to outsiders, people that were not raised in the society he was born into in his last life.
In the Germany of his past live feminism pretty much reached his peak and being thrown back towards a time of feudal society was still very hard for Victor, even after nearly ten years, at least sometimes.
What he did for Ashara isn't all that much, considered from the standpoint of his previous life, but enough to completely catch this young noble lady off-guard.
He didn't know how to explain his behavior in a reasonable way, nor did he want to explain anything at all right now.
"Ashara, you don't know me for a long time and if you add all the time we spent together, it actually doesn't amount to a large period of time. You don't need to understand anything I do, sometimes you just need to accept it.
If you believe that I don't plan anything wrong towards you, everything else will be al right.
Let's just forget about why I am planning this new opportunity. Do you want to listen to it at all, or just continue with your current life?"
Ashara was really struggling with this question because she didn't know the consequences of this choice. But she somehow believed that anything Victor expected her to do would lead to positive results for her in the end, so she decided to listen first.
Victor slowly began to explain to her everything he knew about the Summer Islands and the new cocoa bean he discovered. He slowly explained how to make precious chocolate out of cocoa beans.
Following a 7-step process of harvesting, fermenting (and drying), roasting, grinding, blending, tempering, and molding – you can make delicious homemade chocolate from cocoa beans.
The cacao tree is grown in tropical climates on the Summer Islands. These trees produce a fruit which is the cacao pod that grows on the branches and trunk of the tree.
The many steps and procedures were very fascinating for the young dornish girl and she wished to start experimenting as soon as she finished listening. But Victor obviously knew that she couldn't remember everything he just said as an overview.
The next few hours the two spent sitting on the balcony drinking refreshing tea and eat pastries, while Ashara was writing down anything she needed to know about making chocolate.
When maidservants brought in many different bags of cocoa beans Ashara played around with them like a small child that found many new toys. A little while later Isabella joined their learning session together with her two daughters. Giulia and Diane obviously pestered her to such an extent that she only had the choice to lose any reason with them or just bring them together with her and go to Victor's courtyard. The two little girls were desperate to join Ashara and wanted to know anything she did.
The result being that Ashara explained all her newly gained knowledge about cocoa beans and chocolate to them. When Diane listened to the description about just how heavenly chocolate would test in the future the little girl showed an extremely cute expression, roughly like a small puppy looking for food on the table and the owner is refusing to let them eat anything.
The little girl was close to throwing a large temper but luckily Victor managed to calm her down. But she desperately wanted to start with the process of making chocolate.
They spent the next few hours building a fermentation room in Victor's courtyard.
Victor explained a lot of pf practical knowledge while they harvested the beans.
"Once you cut open the cacao pods, you'll see the cacao beans, which are covered in a viscous white 'mucilage' coating.
The white jelly pulp/coating is edible too. Traditionally its eaten as-is or blended with water into a juice 'cacao juice'. The flavor is sweet tart/acidic and has similarities with soursop.
The hard bean inside is the cacao bean. At this point we have yet to ferment, or roast is so it's fairly 'wet' looking with a purple color and brain like appearance when you cut into it due to all the individual nibs inside."
To start the fermentation process they first laid out banana leaves then filled it with the beans, topping it with a layer of banana leaves. They needed to heat the room a little, but the climate of Canahs didn't need much heat increase.
As they ferment, the temperature of the beans will naturally rise to between 104-122ºF/40-50ºC, thus encouraging the fermentation process. As the beans ferment the white layer will break down into a juice, which Ashara will drain every other day.
The fermentation process will take roughly five days, so no matter how much Diane wanted chocolate right now, she needed to be patient and wait for the beans to be ready.
After finally putting the little girls to sleep in one of his guest rooms, the adults could rest as well. Ashara and Isabella shared a side room next to Victor's main bedroom and the whole family went to rest, completely forgetting about the poor and lonely Amando Di Natale.
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