03 January, 2011

A Host of Tiny Concerns

Did you have a good Christmas? I certainly hope so.

Chrimble at my family home is an odd affair. I'm 6 feet tall, and am the shortest of the family, which is almost exclusively male - the odd female* is drafted in every now and again for the purposes of creating the next generation of thugs. Family meetings are like the reunion of a rugby club.

*Chinese, in my case, or Japanese, in the case of my cousin.

In keeping with this tradition of tall, violent males, I received the following charming gift from my youngest cousin:

Yard
Look upon my ale, ye mighty, and despair

This is a "yard", much beloved by students for its ability to contain approx. 2.4 litres of (typically quite grim) beer.  Thus, after fuelling ourselves on a large Christmas lunch, it was only natural that the twenty- and thirty-something males in our brood ended up on the farmhouse doorstep timing one another in the consumption of unpleasant Belgian lager*.  Amusingly, the family record for consuming the yard is held by my female cousin, Naomi, who now has a family of two children of her own (both of whom are tall, violent boys).

*If indeed one could call Stella Artois a Belgian lager (and which is colloquially blessed with the charming pseudonym "Wifebeater" in the UK).

Of course, despite picking up bad habits at university, the men in my family, being English, are naturally uxorious.  It is the women in the family who hold the real power, but our wives and girlfriends allow us the illusion of freedom.  It is telling that I write this entry in between running to a nearby room to ask if my dear wife needs help with Xiaohu.

 Christmas was an excellent opportunity to introduce the Big Man to his relatives.


Xiaohu
His royal cuddliness, the Marquis des Chubs

There is, as I often write, no place like home.  As always, I conclude that the purpose of travel is to remind oneself of how much one adores ones home.  If an Englishman's home is his castle, then allow me to introduce you to our newly-refurbished Keep...


Tea Shelves
Has it come to this?

"Whatever you do, don't let Chinese Mama see that."  Such was the advice of my dear wife, who shows remarkable tolerance of my tea habit.  Our collection is quite humble in comparison to those truly mighty hoards amassed by many in the world of pu'ercha, but it is getting a bit sizable, nonetheless.  

I keep an inventory of our cakes, primarily so that I can remember what it is that we have on our shelves, but also as an amusing game of observing how the prices have changed since we bought them.  The  spreadsheet  reports that the total cost to us is now a number I'd rather not consider, which is terrifying.  Though I wouldn't sell them, and don't believe in collecting for any reason other than drinking, I often wonder at their current value.  The majority are younger than 2003, so perhaps the difference in value isn't too great.

As I unpacked our cakes onto the shelves, I realised that most of them had been stored in large boxes for the last three years.  Due to constant house moving and refurbishing, it has been that long since I've been able to access the entire lot.  To see them all together is disconcerting... but the room smells brilliant.

15 comments:

argus said...

what a great image... if I only had a tenth of that collection I'd be one happy tea drinker. nevermind, I'm slowly getting there :)

Hobbes said...

I firmly believe that it's not about quantity! Half a dozen truly lovely cakes can easily give as much pleasure as a thousand. Even when one has zillions of cakes, how much more enjoyment does one have than if one owns just a few? There is only so much tea that one can drink. Therefore, my as ever, my constant advice is: take your time. :)


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Anonymous said...

The little man has grown a lot since the last picture. Also very nice to see all your collection in one picture.

Apache

Hobbes said...

I hope that you had a good Christmas, Apache. Perhaps this year, we can have that tea gathering with some other UK-based drinkers that we previously discussed!

Xiaohu is a big chap - certainly for one who is half Chinese :)


All the best,

Hobbes

Anonymous said...

Since you are saying that those cakes spent the last three years in plastic boxes - how are they doing, especially those that were new vintage when bought?

I'm asking because I had a sample of a four year old sheng recently that had been stored from the beginning in Europe. In comparison with samples of the same age I bought from Yunnan Sourcing it was quite dissapointing, still very green in many ways and with noticable smokiness - the smokiness I would expect to have gone at that age.
Maybe those plastic boxes might have even a good effect -?

Anonymous said...

Thanks Hobbes, yes, I do have a very good Christmas.

Let me know when you organize a UK tea gathering, I look forwards to that.

Best wishes

Apache

Hobbes said...

Dear Anoymous,

Concerning the storage of the cakes - the boxes in which they were stored were very large, open-topped plastic tubs. Perhaps they were around 100cm x 50cm in dimensions. Given that large size, I don't believe that they had an effect on the tea - certainly, I haven't noticed it. The open tops provide circulation of air, and each box holds approx. 50 cakes or so.

That said, I am conservative with my cakes - I kept my various tong, and particularly decent cakes, elsewhere. The cakes that were stored in the large plastic storage containers were "disposable" cakes, such as modern Xiaguan, Menghai, etc. I kept an eye on them over their time in storage, to ensure that they weren't becoming affected by the boxes.

Europe is a big place, of course, and so storage conditions will vary accordingly. For what it's worth, the excessively damp English air, combined with very hot summers over the past few years, have contributed to some very decent ageing. The cakes that have been with me the longest are a clutch of Dayi from 2003, and they're now smooth and woody, which is encouraging.

Which part of the Europe is your home? As long as it's not, say, Scandinavia, then I'd imagine your cakes would age quite well. :)


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your answer & sorry I did not leave my name (one of my New Year's resolutions, to create a google account ...)
I am from Germany, and the sample I was talking about was also stored in Germany (not by myself). Trier, the city I live in, is known to have been used as a training camp for soldiers that were going to be sent to the tropics during the Prussian area, so one would imagine conditions are good... On the other hand, during the heating season, that doesn't mean a thing - as soon as the cold air gets warmed inside, relative humidity decreases. Have been watching my new hygrometer those last two month, it was about 40 ... 45% on average (and that attic is not heated, T around 15°C). But your experience sounds encouraging. Do you ever measure humidity?

Best wishes,
Martin

Anonymous said...

I actually live in scandinavia – sweden to be precise – and at the moment I have less than 10%rh in my apartment; the hygrometer doesn't work below 10 so I can't be more specific than that (no joke).

I've made a sort of makeshift humidor which right now are holding steady on 65% (temperature: 20c) where I keep my humble but growing collection of around 15kg. It's only been about 18 months since I built the thing and started collecting so I have to wait a lot longer before I can be sure of any results, but it's fun to experiment and hopefully I will have learnt something from it.

It's so sad though that they can never be allowed to breathe the open air...

Johan

Anonymous said...

I also wanted to say that it's nice to see you posting again. Your writing here are always both entertaining and enlightening.
Thank you for that!

Johan

Hobbes said...

Dear Martin,

Very true - the heating season will result in decreased humidity. I haven't found this to be a big problem; some say that the winter season is when the cakes "dry" a little, after expansion during the wetter summer months. Humidity and temperature should be sinusoidal, after all, in good aging areas. I don't measure humidity myself, but imagine similar results to yours: drier when the heating is on in winter, and exceedingly humid at other times of the year. 'Cycling around my city, you can almost taste the water in the air - it's heavily saturated. Lin Yutang mentioned that this resulted in English people having good skin... :)

Hobbes said...

Dear Johan,

Thanks very much for the compliment - it makes writing much more of a pleasure when you know that someone is gaining pleasure from reading.

You know, when I wrote about Scandinavia, I suspected that a Viking reader might comment. ;)

I like your idea of a humidor - I would definitely take a similar approach in such dry conditions. Do please let us know how your cakes age.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Anonymous said...

Johan,

Oooohh, that really sounds like grim cold (and dry, as a result)... !
I would be iterested in details of your makeshift humidor. I might like to try something like that myself.

And yes, please do let us know how your cakes age (later on)!

Martin

Anonymous said...

The thought of a viking drinking tea conjures up some savage imagery: an entire tea tree roasting over an open fire or a bearded brute drinking down a whole horn of tea in just one violent gulp...
But what would I know? I'm mostly of belgian decent (centuries ago).

Martin
Well, I don't want to turn this into another humidor thread (that's why they invented teachat, I think) and I want to be frank by saying that I'm very far from being an expert on storage.
But since you asked it's really just a medium sized box that I made as air tight as possible and then furnished with some 70%rh humidity beads from heartfelt (the biggest set they got). The circulation of air isn't that good, but it seems to hold between 63-65rh around the box in the winter months and 70rh the rest of the year. I need to change to a bigger one soon to hold my latest purchases and I might opt for something more advanced further down the road (with an electric humidifier and fans and such), but that would be for my own obsessiveness to decide.
If you want more details you can give me your teachat name (or email) and I'll PM you. Or you could check out some of the cigarr furums – if not for the humidors then for the calming realization that there are plenty of people out there much more insane than you are.

Good luck!

Johan

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Johan! This is a lot of excellent information right there. Hadn't heard of the beads before, that's very useful.

Martin