Chapter 29

“Hmm…”

I shook my head while looking down at the report resting on the desk.

Feasibility Analysis for the Acquisition of the Assam Company.

This really isn’t it.

I picked up my quill and drew a line through the report.

“Am I out of my mind to do someone else’s work for them?”

It was true that I had considered acquiring the existing Assam Company to smooth out material supply. Yet with their bloated management, inefficient staffing structure, and above all, directors sitting in some comfortable office in London who had never once laid eyes on the field, there was no chance in hell they would listen to my instructions.

Acquiring an existing organization meant inheriting the years of inertia embedded within it. Inertia was a heavy, sluggish swamp, and when new seeds were planted inside that swamp, they generally rotted away.

It seemed far better to establish the Royal Tea House Company and lay down a completely fresh board.

If we put forward a top-tier tea brand guaranteed by the royal house and managed for quality by the royal house, we could capture both freshness and trust in the market.

Yet the problem, as always, was money.

Establishing the company, creating plantations in India, and building a logistics network.
Merely uttering these three words caused astronomical funds to slip away between them.

Bringing a handful of tea leaves across from distant lands required the sea, time, countless people, and massive quantities of silver. Trade was ultimately the price paid for distance, so bringing something from afar close meant filling every stretch of distance between with silver.

Shall I reach out to Parliament?

I pondered briefly before shaking my head.

A massive uproar had just shaken Parliament over the Opium War, and if I asked them for a budget to nurture a tea industry whose success was questionable by their standards, it would inevitably hand them a pretext for a counterattack.

The real problem lies elsewhere, though.

Namely, the East India Company ruling the Indian subcontinent, and the containment of parliamentarians tied to them.

With the East India Company running smoothly enough, reaching out to Parliament to establish a new company? Wouldn’t they suspect the underlying motives right from the start?

“In the end, establishing a company requires gathering investors…”

Investors are cold.
Simply hoisting a sign as a royal-chartered company would not suffice to open their wallets.

We needed a definite product far superior and more captivating than the tea imported from Qing China—one that could instantly seize people’s tongues, meaning a solid guarantee of profitability.

“Though instilling that conviction is the tricky part.”

I stood up and walked over to the window. To secure investment, I ultimately had to prove that the Assam tea our company would handle surpassed the Qing China tea currently dominating the market.

Frankly speaking, it lacks flavor.

I furrowed my brow, recalling the taste of the Assam tea I had sampled days ago.
I instantly grasped why the tea brought from Assam might have received favorable reviews, yet failed to translate into actual explosive demand.

To put it into an analogy:
It was like someone in China making stir-fried noodles breathing literal fire and shouting, [We made this too! Wow, isn’t it amazing?!], while people back home still lined up to buy the original from Korea. The gap in the tea market during this era was precisely of that scale.

Britons of this era favored tea carrying a deep, smooth, smoky aroma, much like Qing China’s Lapsang Souchong. It was that elegant tea where the smoke of distant Fujian pine trees permeated the tea leaves, conjuring the coziness of sitting beside a mountain lodge fireplace upon the tongue with a single sip. By contrast, India’s Assam tea?

“Far too strong and astringent.”

It possessed an intense body that felt like chewing raw soil, accompanied by an astringency that tightened both sides of the tongue. The flavor was so rough that it was hard to swallow plain without pouring in generous amounts of milk and sugar. To defeat the gem of Qing China—polished continuously for hundreds of years—with such a raw gemstone of a tea? Anyone would call it a reckless challenge.

Without a solid item, this won’t work.

Astringency and rough flavor.

If this could not be resolved, the Royal Tea House Company would undoubtedly collapse before it even began.

Yet I possessed a secret weapon.

The aroma of that tea, which my sister and I had sipped repeatedly in a corner of the company office pantry back in the day, was lingering somewhere along my palate right now.

A magic that blankets the rough, astringent taste with an elegant fragrance.

The company pantry. A tin of Mariage Frères sat there, and on days when my senior and I returned after being lectured in the conference room, we would pop open the lid of that tin and scoop out an extra generous spoonful.

The fragrance reached my nose before the flavor, and that fragrance miraculously pushed away the chill of the conference room bit by bit. Fragrance was a consolation made of air, and that consolation warmly embraced my exhausted self.

And now, I intended to plant that consolation into this era.

“Your Majesty, Dr. Lindley and… Mr. Fortune have arrived.”

Baroness Lehzen’s voice pulled me out of my musings.

They’ve finally arrived.

“Show them in.”

Perfect timing.

With those two around, they might prove a tremendous help in crafting the product… No, I’ll make damn sure they do!

The southern botanical garden of Buckingham.

Inside the conservatory, now repurposed as a temporary research laboratory for black tea development, a strange tension hung in the air. Piles of Assam tea leaves sold at last year’s auctions were stacked high across the table, and the two men sighed as they surveyed the spread leaves.

“…Are we really brewing tea with this again today?”

“I take pleasure in drinking Assam tea.”

As I maintained a shameless attitude, Fortune furrowed his brow.

“Your Majesty, I have told you repeatedly, this rough taste does not suit the palates of the high-and-mighty. It might pass if laborers drank it to chase away sleep, but if you served this at a Mayfair townhouse over there, it would earn you expulsion from high society by the very next day.”

His evaluation was merciless.

Yet within his mercilessness lay a profound reverence for tea; only someone who truly loved tea could deliver such unsparing assessments.

“Breeding and improving the variety will take quite some time. Competing with Chinese tea right away will be difficult.”

Dr. Lindley chimed in as well, but I kept my smile.

“Isn’t that precisely why I summoned the two of you?”

I stood up and walked toward the window.

“People care about flavor, of course, but there is something else they obsess over far more.”

“Price, you mean?”

Good grief, typical Englishman with an average baseline of mammonism.

“Fragrance. And the vanity called exclusivity.”

I turned back to look at the two men.

While people believe they are drinking something delicious, they are simultaneously swallowing the sensation of drinking something distinct from everyone else. And that is the very essence of a luxury good.

“The strong flavor of Assam tea is not a flaw. In fact, it can become an advantage. It serves as a sturdy backbone capable of supporting a strong fragrance.”

“A strong… fragrance?”

“Yes, we are going to dress this rough, unpolished Assam tea in a top-tier gown.”

I pulled a prepared note from my drawer and handed it to Fortune.

“Bring me bergamot.”

“Bergamot, you say… Do you mean that citrus fruit growing in the Calabria region of Italy?”

True to a botanist, Dr. Lindley recognized it instantly.

“Bergamot…? Isn’t that used as a perfume ingredient?”

Fortune wore a bewildered expression.

Perfume was meant to be applied to the body or sprayed into the air, not infused into tea leaves. To his common sense, the suggestion of applying such a thing onto tea leaves must have been completely incomprehensible.

“I know. Just go fetch it.”

Throwing out long, pedantic explanations here would mark one as a beginner.
A master simply blends bergamot oil into tea leaves and proves it with results.

Earl Grey.

In the 21st century, it was the quintessential, ubiquitous flavored tea, but right here in the year 1839, it would become a revolution the world had never seen before.

We would weave magic: blanketing the rough, astringent flaws of Assam tea beneath the extravagant fragrance of bergamot, thereby sublimating that heavy body into an asset.

A week later, bottles of bergamot oil rushed in via Mediterranean merchants sat arrayed across the table. A transparent yellowish hue tinged with green. Sunlight pierced through the glass walls of the bottles, scattering tiny golden dots across the tabletop. Each glass bottle seemed to harbor a miniature sun inside.

“Your Majesty, are you truly planning to mix these?”

Fortune still wore a dubious look. A true craftsman never handled his materials carelessly, and before an unfamiliar combination, he would invariably pause for a beat. His cautiousness actually reassured me.

The moment the lid of the bergamot oil bottle was opened, the entire atmosphere of the conservatory shifted instantly into a different texture. An intense citrus aroma soared like a pillar, rapidly spreading toward every corner of the glass ceiling.

It was a fragrance so potent that it risked ruining the tea leaves entirely.

“That’s why we must mix it well.”

“Oh, as expected. Your Majesty had a plan all along?”

“No?”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me. Mix it well.”

“…M-Me?”

“Well, am I the monarch supposed to be mixing it by hand myself?”

Having suddenly realized the class difference, Fortune stared at me with an expression that asked what kind of human being I was, but what could he do? I was the monarch! Too bad for him!

A short while later.

“Your Majesty! It failed!”

First attempt.

Fortune cried out with a face ready to burst into tears.

He had poured the bergamot oil directly onto the tea leaves and mixed them, but the result was disastrous.

“The leaves turned into a sticky paste and clumped together. The scent is so overpowering it’s giving me a headache, and the taste is… Ugh!”

Tasting it, Fortune stuck out his tongue in utter disgust.

Ha… What is this, boiling beef and radish soup?

The oil-drenched tea leaves resembled a greasy oil broth rather than actual tea.

Mix bergamot oil into tea leaves and—ta-da—it becomes Earl Grey.

Knowing the theory was one thing, but implementing it with 1839 technology was an entirely different matter.

At that moment, Dr. Lindley, who had been observing quietly, adjusted his spectacles and spoke:

“Pouring the oil directly is incorrect, Your Majesty.”

“Incorrect?”

“Yes. Do plant leaves not breathe through their stomata? Moreover, dried tea leaves possess an extremely strong property of absorbing surrounding odors.”

“And so?”

“I doubt there is any need to apply oil directly to the leaves. Would it not suffice to let them absorb only the fragrance, much like smoking?”

Ah, as expected, a doctor wasn’t just anybody.

“Infuse the fragrance, you say. Could you explain in more detail?”

“Bergamot oil is highly volatile, so merely placing it together within a sealed space should be quite sufficient.”

We immediately altered our experimental method according to the doctor’s suggestion.

First, we picked out the coarse stems from the Assam tea leaves and standardized the leaf size.

Then, we prepared a large ceramic jar, lining its bottom with plain cotton cloth thoroughly soaked in bergamot oil.

Over that, we laid a sheet of thin paper, stacking the selected tea leaves layer by layer.
Finally, we meticulously sealed the lid of the jar with beeswax.

“If we do this, the leaves will absorb the oil adequately.”

We waited several days with fluttering hearts.

Praying that the oil would not touch the tea leaves directly, but that only its fragrance would permeate deep into the leaves.

For three days, we left that jar untouched.

During those three days, the other plants in the conservatory lived out their daily routines.
Orchids bloomed, rosebuds opened a fraction wider, and the afternoon light continued to shift angles across the conservatory’s glass panes. Within the flow of that routine, only that jar remained isolated from the outside, continuing its own secret transformation.

Three days later, we peeled away the beeswax from the jar with trembling hands.

-Whoosh!

The moment it opened, the interior of the conservatory instantly transformed into a Mediterranean garden. Not a trace of harsh oily odor remained. Instead, the heavy malt notes unique to Assam and the refreshing citrus of bergamot polished each other’s edges, blending into an entirely new air that rose into the space.

“Good grief…”

Fortune stared into the jar, completely lost for words.

The tea leaves were thoroughly and softly dried, yet bringing one’s nose close to them released a rich bergamot aroma.

“A success.”

Yet we could not stop here.

I wanted to perfectly recreate the flavor I had enjoyed so much in the 21st century.

“Mr. Fortune, if we blend just a tiny bit of Lapsang Souchong into this, wouldn’t the smoky aroma anchor the lightness of the bergamot?”

At those words, Fortune’s eyes lit up as he looked at me.

“I’ll fetch some right away!”

“And… Dr. Lindley, blue cornflowers are blooming in the royal garden, aren’t they?”

“Pardon? Cornflowers? Those are flowers treated as mere weeds…”

“Please pluck those petals and dry them. When blue petals are mixed among black tea leaves, they will look just like stars in a night sky.”

From a botanist’s perspective, cornflowers were merely subjects to be classified and recorded as weeds; he probably never imagined they could be utilized as a decoration within tea.

A flower treated as a weed, resting like a star among black tea leaves.

Just as yesterday’s weeds become today’s stars, perhaps transferring Dr. Lindley and Fortune here into the positions where they truly belonged was precisely my role to fulfill.

The tea, having completed its blending, was not consumed immediately; instead, it was placed inside oak casks to mature for two weeks. Freshly imparted fragrance tends to be overly sharp, so time was needed for the taste and aroma of the tea to embrace one another and become one.

A fortnight later, three white bone china teacups sat upon the research table.

My well-matured, ambitious creation steeped to a reddish hue within the boiling water.

Pour, pour, pour—

The tea liquor assumed a deep red.

The heavy coloration characteristic of Assam.

Yet from the rising steam, instead of Lapsang Souchong’s pine smoke, a radiant and dignified bergamot aroma drifted vibrantly.

“Drink up.”

At my words, Dr. Lindley and Fortune cautiously lifted their cups.

Blow, blow, sip.

“…!”

Fortune’s eyes snapped wide open, and as if unable to believe it, he brought the cup back to his lips.

“This is… this is magic!”

“How is it?”

“Assam’s astringency… has vanished. No, it hasn’t vanished—the bergamot fragrance wraps around the tongue and transforms the astringency into freshness! The throat-hit is weighty, yet the aftertaste is as light as a feather. Good grief…!”

The moment the metaphor “light as a feather” burst from his mouth, I inwardly marveled a little.

It was proof that the tea was extraordinary enough to draw poetic vocabulary from his unpolished mouth.

“The fragrance is… truly elegant. It feels like drinking tea beneath the shade of an orange tree. If I had to purchase tea… Ha… I harbor the urge to buy this tea in massive quantities.”

The word “purchase” dropping from Dr. Lindley’s lips was equally striking.

The fact that commercial viability had slipped from his mouth meant this tea had begun to transcend the realm of academia and shake reality itself.

“Splendid. This should sell quite well.”

As I set down my teacup with a satisfied smile, Fortune tilted his head in confusion.

“Yet Your Majesty, what is the name of this tea?”

“Would you care to recommend one?”

At that, Fortune looked at me with an exceedingly serious expression.

“How about ‘God Bless England and Great Kingdom Tea’?”

…Is this guy genuinely insane?

The core of marketing is storytelling.

What was needed wasn’t merely a delicious tea, but a narrative that made people want to drink it—what on earth was this “God bless whatever, great whatever” nonsense?

“As expected of Mr. Fortune! What a magnificent name!”

“Ah.”

Dr. Lindley! Even you?!

19th-century Britain possessed not an ounce of marketing sense.

Just as I was once again acutely realizing what it meant to have landed in this bleak place, Baroness Lehzen hurriedly sought me out.

“Your Majesty, an invitation has arrived from the residence of Earl Charles Grey.”

A single letter resting upon a silver tray.

“Earl Grey?”

“Yes, they say he is hosting a large-scale charity ball for the poor of London. He mentioned it would be a great honor should Your Majesty grace them with your presence…”

In an instant, a lightbulb flickered brightly inside my head.

Earl Grey, Lady Grey, the Grey family, and the future of this tea.

I kept my gaze fixed upon the letter for a long while without moving.

The letter’s seal was deep red beeswax, upon which the crest of the Grey family was vividly stamped.

Perhaps the name of the tea had already been written all along.