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For those who don't have an rss feed or other way to follow it, Cha Dao has another article in the series about aging puerh.

Salsero wrote:For those who don't have an rss feed or other way to follow it, Cha Dao has another article in the series about aging puerh.

hey sal,

how does that rss feeder thing work? so whoever has that symbol can get update whenever that site has new info? sorry, but i am still very much a luddite in this computer age.

I use Google Reader. It's easy to set up. Just Google it.

Salsero wrote:I use Google Reader. It's easy to set up. Just Google it.

done. thanks.

Thanks for posting Sal! I was wondering though, its says that if you find mold you need to clean it off the cake. Does anyone know how to do this??

shogun89 wrote: Does anyone know how to do this??

I used a toothbrush to clean white frost off some cakes of mine.

Salsero wrote:

shogun89 wrote: Does anyone know how to do this??

I used a toothbrush to clean white frost off some cakes of mine.

I saw an article about that in AOT but I wonder if that can actually work for mold? I always though that once the mold developed there is no way to get rid of it.

hi guys,
the article is really very informative, and helpful...

as for your mold question, i just discovered mold on some of my cakes, actually 5 of them of the same stack that i got from malaysia. i used a toothbrush and brushed them off, the smell went away, and following advise from warren, sun dried it a few hours for 2 consecutive days. so far no molds yet, but the cakes still feel a bit "cold"... more like a sign of "internal dampness" in my opinion, the cakes left the factory not fully dried, probably in a hurry, so i plan to bring it to the office where humidity is 60% to dry off for a month, i'll share with you guys my results.

as for clay jars, i called a pottery factory to make some jars for me, they dont have email and dont know how to operate their fax machine, so i have to send my drawings and pictures to them, hopefully, they can make the jars, i'll be posting the experience here if anything does push through...

Thanks for the update, Odarwin. Keep us posted.

Interesting reads.

I recently got access to 2 humidity meters to see what my local conditions are. Right they are on my balcony and one of them is reading 43% RH, the other is reading 53% RH, while my weather stations all say I should be experiencing a RH of 87%. What's the deal with this? Are these humidity meters generally crappy unless they are expensive enough?

Also, what is a humidor exactly and how expensive are they?

taitea wrote: What's the deal with this? Are these humidity meters generally crappy unless they are expensive enough?

Also, what is a humidor exactly and how expensive are they?

Here is an article about calibrating hygrometers:
http://cigars.about.com/od/humidors/qt/hygrometers.htm

A humidor is generally any humidity-controlled environment. For cigars they are small enough to hold a few cigars or large enough to walk into.

Excellent link. Testing now. Of course, after reading the cha dao articles I realize that once I measure what my indoor RH is, there's not much I can conclude.

taitea wrote: Excellent link. Testing now. Of course, after reading the cha dao articles I realize that once I measure what my indoor RH is, there's not much I can conclude.

I think it is reasonable to point out that -- despite all the comments we all make in this forum -- there is not any overwhelming evidence that you are necessarily better off artificially increasing the humidity around your pu as many of us (including me) are doing. It seems reasonable, but there certainly are risks, and the result may not be better even if it is different.

And the results we are aiming for will likely not be noticeable for several years.

I still want to know what will happen to a cake if stored in about 50% for say 10 years. Will the cake become bad due to lack of humidity? Will it just not age at all? or will it age slower? If anyone can tell me or make a guess I would appreciate it.

I also would like to know the answer to that one. Most evidence so far, unfortunately, seems to be rather unsatisfying testimonials or received wisdom that has never been tested. In the past I think no one really thought much about optimal storage. Tea just got parked somewhere at some point in the distribution process with no one thinking too much about it, much less taking notes and keeping records about the nature of climate in a specific location.

There's a Puerh LJ article today by humble_learner on the separate but related issue of aging cakes made with high quality leaves and buds.

He seems to be adding a bit more evidence to the argument that sheng which tastes great young, may not age well. One could extrapolate from his short personal experience that it might be better to store some of these light and luscious babies in a drier environment in order to postpone aging.