Friday, April 28, 2017

It Happened to me: A Puerh Drinker’s Worst Nightmare!!!


Warning the following content is graphic to drinkers of raw aged sheng puerh…

It happened to me and (this is your warning), it can happen to you…

I just happen to drink through a few cakes of approximately 10 years aged puerh, no big deal.  I’ll just go downstairs into my infinitely large stash of puerh a grab a few more cakes.  The stash is so big that it will probably last forever so really I don’t tend to check on it very closely.  I really don’t drink THAT much puerh anyways.  Half asleep, I creek down the 100 year old steps into the basement and into a rather unattended corner of my very unorganized basement.  I make my way into the corner littered haphazardly with cardboard boxes and Rubbermaid storage containers some unopened since moving from Korea or Victoria or place to place so many times.  I dig into a box that is littered with old dried bamambo tong wrappers and other tong boxes.  I pull back the bamboo and pull out a cake- wait a minute… is this the last cake in the tong? …. I can’t drink up this last cake.   It’s taste, smell, and feel bring back to a time and place I love.  Only one left!  Well I have many more tongs of different sheng puerh so I guess I’ll just grab another… only 3 cakes left in that tong… only 2 left in that tong… and a few other loose cakes… THAT’S IT!  All of a sudden, in that moment, I realized one of the worst nightmares of puerh drinkers has in fact come true.

It turns out that my stash wasn’t that big after all.  At its peak in 2012 it was at around 45 cakes, I think.  Now, I am left with around 15.  It turns out that it won’t actually last forever and it turns out that I do, infact, drink lots of aged puerh.  Over the last few years I have been drinking more and more puerh and less of other teas.  This is mainly due to the fact that many of the cakes I purchased approximately 10 years ago are now ready to drink and I feel that they are the healthiest option as well has the most enjoyable of teas.  I have quite a taste for adolescent sheng puerh- when it becomes quite easy on the digestive system but retains the vigor of its youth.  I love this stage, the qi, the taste, the aroma.  If I continue drinking as much as I do the whole stash will be completely gone in a year or two including some cakes from the 70s and 90s!

That’s right hoarding puerh drinkers, at some point you too may drink through your stash.

So this is where I am right now…

Peace

 

6 comments:

Curigane said...

And me thinking u found some mold on it. Tiago

Matt said...

Curigane,

Welcome to MattCha's Blog and thanks for calling that out.

I suppose now that it would be like the 4th worst nightmare.

1#- acquiring a health condition where you cannot consume puerh. But if this happened you would probably be more concerned about other, more important things in life like family, loved ones, etc... puerh drinking might not be top of mind.

#2- complete and obvious destruction of puerh stash by either natural disaster (flooding and fire) or rodent infestation or being contaminated by chemicals. But again if that ever occurred maybe your puerh stash would not be your most pressing issue. Shelter for instance is higher on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Even if your puerh sustained a bit of water or smoke damage it can still probably be saved. Marshal'N recently blogged about this one.

#3- Mold-this is a real common fear of people that tinker with high humidity storage. But usually the puerh can still be salvaged. I remember a fellow old school blogger lost his whole thousands of dollar stash that molded up in a shed he was using for storage- bad idea. (can anyone remember who it was? I forget).

So I guess this would be like the 4th worst nightmare of puerh drinkers... I guess things are already looking up!

Peace

tieguanyin said...

Hello Matt,

Glad to see you are back. Regarding item # 3, are you thinking of the Tuo Cha Tea blog written by a Slovakian tea drinker? I think this entry is the one you are describing. This happened to me as well; thankfully, the amount of tea lost was not as substantial!

Best,

TGY

Matt said...

tieguanyin,

Glad to hear from you again too. That's the one! Was sure it was him but couldn't find the posting.

Good thing you didn't loose too much. Don't think its really worth the risk to mess with storage too much.

Peace

Lew Perin said...

Hey Matt: it’s so nice to have you back!

Matt said...

Lew Perin,

Thanks Lew! Your the best!

Peace