The Rise of the European Emperor

As soon as dozens of perfumers arrived in East Friesland, Marin arranged for them to start developing good fragrances. As for the variety, Marin ordered the rose scent first.

The rose is a flower that is common in Europe and is common in the UK and Germany. Although the flowering period has passed, there are still many farmers who pluck the rose petals early and dry them for sale.

What these perfumers have to do is to purify the essential oils after soaking and steaming the rose petals they bought. It is then mixed with alcohol to create a fragrance. Of course, there are other things mixed in. For example, add some musk, castoreum or ambergris as a fixative to ensure that the fragrance does not disperse for a long time.

If you don't add a fixative, the smell of the perfume will soon dissipate, and it will be at the level of toilet water.

Of the three fixatives, ambergris works best, but it's just too expensive. Therefore, considering the cost, Marin directly excluded the formulation of adding ambergris as a fixative. Even with such a formula, it can only be used as an ingredient in the top fragrances.

Both musk and castoreum are much cheaper, but musk has a big problem, that is, pregnant women can't smell it, otherwise it will easily lead to miscarriage. So Marin finally decided to use castoreum as a fixative.

After all, perfumes were created for female users. Even if it is used by men, it is also used by women. If a pregnant woman is miscarried, it will be discredited, and it will even lead to revenge. So, even though castoreum is a bit more expensive than musk, Marin opted for castoreum. The big deal, organize more fishermen to catch beavers. Even beaver farming could be considered on a large scale for the extraction of castoreum. It seems that there are more beavers in Canada, and it is also suitable for large-scale breeding there...

When blending perfume, the alcohol given by Marin is medical alcohol with a concentration of more than 70%, which is much better than the spirits with alcohol content of about 50% that perfume blenders use now. After all, Marlina used multi-stage distillation to obtain such a high concentration of alcohol. Also, quicklime is used to absorb water.

After the fragrance has been successfully formulated, the effect is quite good, and Angela and Ferris are very fond of it. In fact, the reason why Marin opposed the use of musk before was because he was afraid that Ferris would smell a miscarriage.

After the perfume is ready, it is natural to consider the packaging. Glass bottles are no problem. Before, Marin brought in a group of craftsmen who could blow glass bottles from Venice and asked them to blow small glass bottles for perfume, which was no problem at all. The only trouble is the sealing problem.

In this era, European bottles were sealed with cork and beeswax. It is to choose a suitable cork first and close the bottle tightly. Then, apply beeswax to the contact area of ​​the cork and the bottle mouth to completely isolate the air.

During the war, the first batch of cans in the world were sealed in this way. However, after the can is heated, it is corked and sealed with beeswax.

Beeswax is a good thing, and there are quite a few in Europe. Long before the introduction of sugarcane to Europe, Europeans wanted to eat sweet and had to choose honey. Therefore, Europeans started beekeeping very early. Beekeeping not only produces honey, but also products such as beeswax, propolis and royal jelly.

Because of its bitter taste, royal jelly has not attracted the attention of Europeans for a long time. Propolis is only used to seal and fix the nest, and it has not attracted the attention of Europeans. However, beeswax attracted the attention of Europeans very early and was widely used.

Moreover, beeswax is a prop for consecration, which is placed directly on the altar. Therefore, most of the monasteries in Europe are beekeeping.

In the early Middle Ages, honey was precious. Some songs are impoverishing nobles, and even go to war over a few boxes of bees. Of course, they were all at the level of village chiefs, usually dozens of knights and a group of farmers with pitchforks fighting with the crowd. If the wealth reaches the level of the mayor, how many boxes of bees will they care about? also aristocrats,

The gap is also huge. Rich nobles naturally don't have to rob beehives to get honey, they just need to spend money to buy it. Only the kind of impoverished aristocrats who have no money to buy honey would bring thugs to rob bee boxes...

One of the important commodities imported from Eastern Europe by the Hanseatic League in its trade with Eastern Europe was beeswax. It seems that in Eastern Europe, the labor price is cheaper. Beekeeping relies on labor costs. Moreover, in Eastern Europe, there are more forests and grasslands, more flowers, and better conditions for beekeeping.

So, Marin wants to get beeswax, the source is still very wide. Moreover, when sealing, the amount of beeswax is much less than that of cork. After all, cork needs a stopper, and the amount of beeswax only needs to cover the perimeter of the cork.

...

As for cork stoppers, Marin sadly discovered that there are only three European cork-producing countries—Portugal, Spain and France…

The cork is cut from the bark of a cork tree, and it is only the inner layer of the bark, only two or three centimeters thick. Then, the craftsmen carefully remove this layer of cork veneer, stack it with other cork veneers, dry it after bonding, and then cut and stamp it directly to make cork stoppers and other supplies after being steamed, softened, and dried. .

The reason why only Portugal, Spain and France produce cork stoppers is mainly because the cork tree is so squeamish...

Cork trees are not adapted to hot climates, nor to cold climates, only year-round warm climates. That is to say, where it grows, it needs to be warm in winter and cool in summer... Counting Europe, only Portugal on the Atlantic Ocean is the most suitable for this requirement. Portugal's latitude is low enough to be sure it's not cold. Coupled with the influence of the Atlantic ocean climate, it can't get hot. In this way, Portugal is the best place in Europe to grow cork trees. Later, Portugal was also known as the "Cork Kingdom".

Spain, which has the same latitude as Portugal, also has some areas suitable for the growth of cork. This part of the area, mainly the part close to the Atlantic Ocean. And that part of the area near the Mediterranean Sea is very hot in summer and belongs to the Mediterranean climate, which is not suitable for the growth of cork. Therefore, only parts of Spain are suitable for the growth of cork.

Similarly, France only has some mountainous areas in the southwest, which are suitable for the growth of cork, but cannot be compared with Portugal.

Right now, the amount of European cork is not small, but not large. But Marin knew he would need a lot of cork in the future.

Not to mention that each of these perfume bottles needs corks, and those glass bottles of beer also need a lot of corks. Even those wine barrels, and the oak barrels that sailors used to fill their fresh water, also needed corks.

This is still the current situation. In the future, Marin may need to come up with a big killer - the Mini rifle. And the Mini bullet of the Mini rifle also needs cork... Those cans and bottles also all need cork...

Even the flowering shells with wooden shells require cork as the shell, and the shell is so large that it consumes a lot of cork.

Therefore, in the future, Marin's demand for cork is great.

However, the Portuguese have not yet realized that the demand for cork will increase greatly in the future, and they are not very concerned about the development and utilization of cork trees. Many cork trees are still idling in the mountains...

It's not that Marin didn't think about transplanting cork trees to other areas, but it took up to 10 years for cork trees to be planted to peeling... Marin obviously can't wait that long... Also, looking for a winter with a climate similar to Portugal It's not easy to find a place that is warm in summer and cool...

So, Marin can only turn his eyes to Portugal...

However, because of the issue of the great voyage, Marin and Portugal had a grudge. If Marin's men go to Portugal to buy cork in Marin's name, they will probably be sent back by the Portuguese with a broken leg. Not to mention letting Marin's men get their hands on the cork trees in the mountains of Portugal...

To this end, after thinking about it, Marin had to entrust businessmen from other countries to go to Portugal to operate the cork industry and find more cork trees. Then, take the goods from their hands...