Steam-Powered Sugar Mill (ETW building)
| Steam-Powered Sugar Mill | |||||||
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| Category: | Sugar | ||||||
| Level: | 3 | ||||||
| Turns to build: | 6 | ||||||
| Building cost: | 7500 | ||||||
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| Requires | |||||||
 Sugar Warehouse | |||||||
| Technology | |||||||
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A sugar mill allows the refinement of raw sugar cane into processed sugar, a delicacy easily transported to the almost insatiable home market.
A sugar mill takes sugar cane and crushes it to extract the juice: when powered by steam, the crushing gears can extract much more juice from the plants. The juice is boiled down until it crystallizes as sugar of various grades. As might be imagined, the process is hot (especially in tropical climes) and dangerous to the workers: injuries from being dragged into the machinery are not uncommon.
Milling improvements allowed more sugar cane to be processed, and make the whole process more efficient as well. Historically, even though European demand seemed to have no limits the price of sugar actually fell over time as manufacturing improved. A healthy trade in machine parts for mills also grew up between Europe and the sugar-growing regions.