A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 14: Small Profits
"Does making tofu puffs require a lot of oil? Oil is so expensive, can you make money making tofu puffs?"

Sanniang felt uneasy when she saw Li Yi spend two taels of gold to buy a hundred kilograms of rapeseed oil. Two taels of gold! Her family had been making tofu for so many years and still hadn't made that much money.

"The current oil price is indeed high, which will make the cost of fried tofu puff higher, but as long as we choose the right customers, we don't have to worry about not making money."

As I said before, you can't sell fried tofu as ordinary tofu, and you can't sell it to ordinary people in the market like before. People definitely can't afford it, and you won't make any money if you sell it too cheaply.

"How much tofu can you make from one pound of soybeans?"

"One pound of soybeans can produce two and a half pounds of firm tofu and five pounds of soft tofu," Sanniang said truthfully. "Most of the tofu we make is traded with others for beans. One pound of beans can be exchanged for one and a half pounds of firm tofu, or three pounds of soft tofu."

"How much is a pound of old tofu?"

"Twenty pieces of meat are good."

Li Yi did a rough calculation and figured out that this pound of tofu would sell for 20 coins, which was the price of a steamed bun at the market. Since most people in the countryside were poor, Luo San's family could trade tofu for it, primarily in exchange for soybeans, which they harvested for making tofu.

Nowadays, soybeans are cheaper than millet, about twenty-six cents per pound.

Luo Sanjia can produce two and a half pounds of firm tofu from one pound of soybeans, which can be sold for fifty coins, with a gross profit of twenty-four coins. The remaining main costs are brine, firewood, and labor.

If you exchange tofu for beans, you will lose four cents for every pound of beans you get.

But Luo Sanniang said that her family couldn't make much money from making tofu.

"My family now makes two dou of soybean tofu every day. One dou is made into firm tofu, and one dou is made into soft tofu."

Li Yi thought for a while and said, "If you sell the tofu made from these two dou of soybeans every day, the gross profit will be about ten kilograms of soybeans, and the tofu dregs are not included." He felt that it was quite profitable, with a gross profit of more than 70%.

"That's not how it's calculated. To make these two dou of tofu, you have to pick and soak the beans. Just grinding the soy milk takes two people half a day. In the middle of the night, you have to boil the milk, add the brine, and then press the tofu. Before dawn, you have to carry the tofu to the market. After the morning market, you have to go from village to village to sell all the remaining tofu.
Just like today, they are often not sold out.

Most of it is exchanged for beans, which makes less profit."

Nowadays, the price of grain is high. A dou of soybeans may be worth three hundred coins, but it is worthless due to inflation.

Even if you earn one and a half dou of beans every day, that's only two and a half dan of rice a month, not counting the cost, which requires two or three people for a family to work.

A farmhand could earn about 12 stone of grain a year, and that included food, lodging, and two seasons of clothing.

So after all the calculations, making tofu is not as good as being a farmhand.

It's just that this is a small business, and the women and children in the family can help with it. It doesn't require much more than working as a farmhand for a landlord.

The key to restricting Luo Sanjia's tofu business is sales. It is often difficult to sell two buckets of beans a day. If they cannot be sold, the profit will be reduced. If the more beans are exchanged, the profit will also be reduced.

"It's really not easy. I grind tofu in the middle of the night and then get up early to go to the market and sell it. No matter if it's windy or rainy, and through the cold and heat of spring, summer, autumn and winter, I can only barely make a living."

"So how much do we need to sell our fried tofu to make a profit?"

"Let's do it first." Li Yi said.

After talking with Luo Sanniang for so long, he finally understood that the key to making money is not the unit price, but depends on market positioning, target customers, and sales volume.

If they only made two buckets of beans a day like the Luo family did before, and often had too much left over from selling all the beans, they would not make any money at all.

In the west wing kitchen of Wuji East Courtyard,

Li Yi is going to try frying fried tofu puffs. In fact, if he wants to fry fried tofu puffs in the future, he will have to adjust the recipe of the brine and other ingredients. For one pound of dry soybeans, it is best to grind nine pounds of pulp. First, mix the second and third pulps together and cook them. Do not boil them. Cook until they are around 80 or 90 degrees, then remove from the pot, mix with the first batch of raw pulp, and then add the brine.

There are also some tricks to pressing the water. The water content of the tofu blank should be controlled between that of firm tofu and dried tofu, that is, about one pound of beans will produce two pounds of tofu blank.

Li Yi knew this because when he was a child, his grandmother would fry her own fried tofu every New Year, and he learned the skill by watching her every year.

The old tofu left over from today's sale is already quite dry.

You can also use it as is, cut the big block of old tofu into smaller pieces the size of mahjong.
Set up the clay pot, light a fire, and pour the turnip oil brought by the oil mill worker into the pot.

"The key to frying tofu puffs in oil is to fry them at low temperature first, then add them to the pan when the oil is warm. This way, the tofu can slowly expand in the pan. The oil temperature should not be too high, otherwise it will not bubble easily and will burst easily. You should also not stir it randomly. Also, don't fry it for too long, otherwise the tofu puffs will absorb the oil."

While frying the tofu, Li Yi told Sanniang all the details and key points. He didn't plan to fry tofu every day in the future.

"When the tofu bubbles have expanded, we need to add more heat and raise the oil temperature. This step is to set the tofu at high temperature. Don't fry it too tender, otherwise it will deflate when you take it out and look ugly. Don't fry it too hard either, otherwise the skin will be too hard, it will waste a lot of oil, and the taste will be bad."

"When you feel it's almost done, you can take a few out and test them. If they deflate, fry them for a while longer."

"If you put the dough into the wok and find that the oil temperature is too high and the dough forms a crust instead of expanding, turn off the heat immediately, take the dough out of the wok, and quickly sprinkle water on the tofu bubbles. Once they soften, turn the heat back on and control the oil temperature before frying."

Li Yi spoke very patiently and Sanniang listened very carefully.

In order to teach well, he deliberately only fried a little in each pot. After teaching over and over again, Sanniang also understood it. Finally, Li Yi asked her to do it herself.

The whole house is filled with the aroma of oil and tofu.

The fragrance filled the Wuji Courtyard.
Lanxiang, Shitou, and Gousheng had also smelled it a long time ago, but when Lanxiang saw Li Yi in the kitchen teaching Sanniang how to fry fried tofu, she took the initiative to stay away from the kitchen, not even letting the curious Shitou brothers get close. "Brother Wuyi is teaching Sanniang the secret recipe, you can't eavesdrop or peek."

"What is this? It smells so good."

······
After working for a long time, I finally finished frying all the remaining tofu.

The golden fried tofu is piled in a willow basket. It is golden in color, fluffy and plump, and exudes an enticing aroma.

Luo Sanniang's face flushed red, and her hair was all messed up with sweat. She looked at the fried tofu in front of her with some disbelief, "It looks so good, and smells so good."

Li Yi is counting statistics.

One pound of soybeans can produce about one and a half pounds of tofu puffs.
One pound of tofu bubbles (16 taels) requires about 5 taels of oil, and about 100 fried tofu bubbles can be made.

After calculation, one pound of soaked oil beans costs more than 17 cents for the beans and 50 cents for the oil, totaling more than 67 cents, not including labor, firewood, and brine.

Luo Sanniang couldn't believe the result. It wasn't because she thought it was too expensive, but because she felt it was much less than she expected.

"Thirty of these fried bean curds cost only twenty coins, the price of a steamed bun?"

"You can't calculate it that way. We haven't even taken into account the labor costs, firewood costs, even the depreciation of the iron pot and stone mill, and the cost of brine. Now a farmhand's wages and food costs nearly two hundred coins a day."

But Luo Sanniang didn't calculate the labor cost. Small businesses don't calculate labor cost. Her own labor cost is worthless, so she only calculates the main material cost.

"Three soaked beans cost two cents. How much do we sell them for? One cent each? One hundred cents per pound?"

Li Yi thought about it. The cost per catty was 67 coins, not including labor, etc., and the current price of pork was only 150 coins per catty, and rice was only about 50 coins per catty. Selling it for 100 coins would definitely make some money, but the profit would not be high.

"Although ours is fried tofu, it's deep-fried. Ten tofu balls cost fifteen cents, which is five cents cheaper than a steamed bun or a pound of tofu. It's not too much, right?"

Luo Sanniang was greatly surprised. "Doesn't that mean it would be sold at 150 coins per jin? The same price as pork?"

"This is golden, oily fried tofu puff, and it's unique. Scarcity makes it valuable. The most important thing is, don't even think about selling it to those tofu customers you used to buy."

"Who will you sell it to?"

"The fat monk in the temple, one dou of soybeans is now worth 180 coins, and with hard work, he can make 18 kilograms of firm tofu, but this is not uncommon.

There are so many Buddhist temples in the capital now. Every family has temple fields all over the place. They also lend money and grain, and even run stores, cart shops, and oil mills. They have countless tenants and are the richest group of people.
Many temples, especially the big ones, have to be closed by riding horses.

Look at the incense burning there, it's even more lively than a market."

The capital of the Tang Dynasty was home to numerous temples, monks, land, money, tenants, servants, and faithful men and women. These were the group with the greatest spending power, but monks had dietary restrictions: they could not eat meat. Even faithful men and women who went to the temples to burn incense and make donations, even powerful officials, had to eat vegetarian food.

Li Yi plans to promote new products such as fried tofu puffs and bean curd sheets to temples. In addition, although Chinese natto, salty fermented black beans, vegetarian chicken, and fermented bean curd have been available for a long time, he can also try to promote them. Not every temple will make these, or do them well.

If these wealthy temples can really promote their products successfully, Li Yi believes that it is not a problem to charge a higher price for fried tofu puffs, and selling them at the price of pork. A common steamed bun also costs twenty cents, and fried tofu puffs are one of a kind, so isn't it worth being more expensive?

By entertaining the nobles and famous people who come to donate with this kind of gift, wouldn't it show the temple's respect for them? If it pleases the nobles and famous people, they will just make a donation, and the money will come back a hundred times.

Sanniang was a little lacking in confidence.

"Let's make some bean curd sheets and vegetarian chicken tomorrow, and I'll figure out a way then."

When Sanniang heard this, she said, "No need to wait until tomorrow. I'll go back and soak the beans and grind them into pulp and make it today."

"Take this fried tofu home."

"Keep it to sell."

"That's not a problem. Take it home first. You haven't discussed this partnership with your father and the others yet."

Sanniang stopped and took a gourd ladle from Li Yi's kitchen, filled it with ten tofu puffs, and said, "I'll show these to my father and the others. I can make the decision about our partnership on my own, there's no need to discuss it with them."

She walked to the door and stopped, looking back, "How do I make this delicious?"

"Stir-fried pork belly is the best, or you can dig a hole in fried tofu, wrap the minced meat inside, and steam it."

Sanniang pouted, "I can't afford meat."

"Then just boil the water, cut some slits in the fried tofu, add it to the pot to make soup, and add some green onions. It's also delicious. Or you can add less water and boil it until the juice is dry. It's also delicious. After all, a pound of fried tofu absorbs five ounces of rapeseed oil."

Li Yi has many delicious ways to cook fried tofu in his memory, including braised pork with fried tofu, fried tofu with green pepper, assorted fried tofu, minced meat soaked in fried tofu, fried tofu stuffed with meat, braised fried tofu with cabbage, stuffed fried tofu, fried tofu soup with chicken rack...

As he thought about it, Li Yi couldn't help drooling.

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(End of this chapter)