Chapter 685: Chapter 685

Coffee beans are produced in huge quantities every year, and the good ones, the famous ones, bring in staggeringly high profits, enough to fill the manor owner’s coffers in a single year. Official source ıs 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭•𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮•𝘯𝘦𝘵

Now, Zhao Coffee, temporarily without a coffee estate of their own and lacking their raw materials—and bearing a stain on their reputation—must carefully consider how to stage an impressive comeback.

Zhuang Haoran took off his elegant suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and focused intently on the task at hand. He was determined to present his best coffee to her, to showcase his full charm. Because of this, he ignored what the others were doing.

His companion, Luca, did the exact opposite, starting to help him gauge the situation of their competitors.

Apart from Gu Nuan, of course, the baristas participating in this competition weren’t lacking in strength either, some of whom were on par with Zhuang Haoran and posed a certain threat.

Luca stood on the outskirts, assessing the situation for a while before coming back to Zhuang Haoran and saying, "It seems like something’s off with her and her partner."

"What’s off?" Zhuang Haoran didn’t look up, as if he hadn’t heard him clearly, but, as long as it was about her, he was actually listening very hard.

Luca said, "They don’t have their own coffee beans, or so it seems now."

"They don’t have their own coffee beans?" Zhuang Haoran heard this and felt a twinge of the same doubt as Luca.

Without their own coffee beans, wasn’t it like advertising for their own estate or for other estates?

"Maybe they just heard about the competition and came just for fun," Luca said, making a relaxed gesture, "You know, there are such participants."

Suddenly, Zhuang Haoran’s brow furrowed slightly, and he said in a low voice, "Then you don’t understand her."

"What?" Luca really didn’t understand the meaning of his words.

"No matter what she does, she always has her own purpose. She wouldn’t do something meaningless, just for fun. No, she is someone who absolutely does not treat work as play," Zhuang Haoran stated with finality.

He might not know her that well, after all, they hadn’t met much in real life, but he knew, and believed deeply, that the charm he was bewitched by was the same charm that brought her miraculous success in her work. This charm made an ordinary person like her blossom like gold, commanding everyone’s attention.

"What’s wrong?" Luca asked as he saw a sheen of sweat on Zhuang Haoran’s forehead, seeming surprised.

Zhuang Haoran gave a wry smile. Could he admit that knowing she was doing something that seemed inexplicable to others made him feel an unprecedented pressure, and it made him incredibly nervous?

The most formidable opponent he thought he’d face in his lifetime was now competing against him right in front of his eyes.

Waving his hand, Zhuang Haoran stopped talking to Luca. At the least, without mentioning victory or defeat, he didn’t want her to see him as powerless, giving up before even starting.

The rules of this competition were similar to many major coffee competitions: one round of brewing with specified coffee beans, and another round where the baristas could choose their own beans to create something unique.

As there were fewer participants and the competition was a small regional one, there was no preliminary round; the one competition was in effect the final. This gave every contestant a sense of pressure, as they had only one chance, fleeting and brief.

The specified coffee beans for brewing were the most common type produced locally.

Obviously, the organizer, wanting to highlight the relative skills of each barista, chose the most ordinary beans, which could test the true level of the barista’s skills.