Pu Erh aging

Don't you think it is

Mike Petro wrote:

Why is there so few info on Tea ageing, regarding wine ageing, tobacco ageing,

Mike Petro wrote:

Very true. He has a thing against people shilling for commercial sites in the newsgroup - which I happen to share. But, as far as I can tell, your site is purely information - not even an advertisement.

As for his feelings on copyrights, he has a unique understanding of what can be copyrighted. Protecting ideas for products/items requires a patent. Protecting phrases requires a trademark.

Never mind the fact that there doesn't seem to be any record of him actually making the post he claims to have made in 1995 where he shared his idea. And Google's archive goes back to the April 11, 1995 start of this group.

As an academic, people who ignore copyright infuriate me. But people who try to claim copyright where none exists irritate me to no end.

You're probably correct there.

not as many people know about how to let this tea keep. most people are just happy getting it from their local markets and drinking it. this would be my guess.

not that many people around like mike.

Petro Shifu. heh.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Alex,

I have to eat a little crow here. I checked again with some Chinese Tea experts and you are quite correct. It took a little bit of coaxing to get it out of them. The thing is in China they never move the puer around like you are having to do because they have naturally wet and dry seasons. So when I asked people about moving the tea back and forth from wet to dry conditions they always told me that it was not necessary, what they didn't tell me was that for "them" the reason it is not necessary is because it occurs naturally.

After a bit of prying I was told that the wet and dry seasons did indeed help the tea to mature faster. They also said that keeping the tea in a very consistent environment, like a year round climate controlled home, would slow down the maturing process. However they also said that a simple trip to the beach for a week would probably not be long enough to simulate the wet seasons they have there.

Over the years Humidors have been discussed many times, in this group and others, in relation to keeping tea and have usually been found to hold the RH too high for most teas. Puer would be the exception. The thing is that most of them use salts that only have one specific humidity value and cannot be adjusted so leaving the puer in them year round would not be appropriate. However, in your case Alex it might be the perfect solution, get one set to 75-80% RH (higher RH than the average cigar humidor), or just get the appropriate salts, and take the puer out of the humidor and store it in your naturally dry air every other quarter. The downside would be that this wont do anything for your love life at all..... ;-)

It turns out that the Chinese have a machine specially made to quickly mature puer using similar methods, switching between humid and dry conditions. I am attempting to find out the specific variables that they use. I also found out the places using Air Conditioning actually adjust the humidity up and down to simulate the wet and dry seasons.

Mike

Mike Petro snipped-for-privacy@pu-erh.net

I like him just fine.

/Lew

oops again. damn, just erase my entire participation from this thread, please.

i meant, there aren't many people around that "are like mike" in his knowledge on pu'er. i like him just fine too...his site is awesome.

there are not many people around that are like mike.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Ah, yes. Another one like me. You know, people who have an unswerving ability to put one foot in their mouth and to start off on the wrong one. ;)

I knew what you meant, but I just couldn't resist. Sorry!

/Lew

:P to both of you! heh

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Mike snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com/8/05

FWIW, the guys at The Tea Gallery make the same claim that Sasha does regarding the alternating of dry and less dry environments for Pu'erh cakes. They say that the seasonal variations in temperature and humidity in Hong Kong are perfect for Pu'erh. They do not speak of air conditioning.

If I ruin a $20.00 cake, that's one thing; if I ruin a $20,000 cake, that's quite another. But, don't worry about me.

Raise that humidity 10 percent or so and you have a good cigar storage, as Jim said. Unless you're storing your cigars in England, and in that case lower it 10 percent.

Wise words. Thanks for reminder. I'm trying to get my hands on those zisha clay canisters without paying an arm and a leg.

Michael

Of course not, you need to raid this group for public domain ideas used on your website. We called you a copycat in school because you never had an original idea.

Jim

Mike Petro wrote:

First you're another clueless WWW webmaster using USENET for self promotion because otherwise you're just another meaningless URL on a Google search page for puerh with hit counters not far from zero. Second you steal ideas from this group under the guise of public domain. You simply can't claim a webpage of transliterations is a Rosetta Stone because you simply consulted a dictionary or asked some person. So obviously you stole that characterization from my posts on the subject. Third all you have to do is set up a simple link to a free blog site and go away but you won't which proves your disingenuous motives. Fourth you're a self admitted hipocrite complaining about what other websites do with this group.

Jim

Mike Petro wrote:

If that is your understanding you're wrong. I used the concept first in this group to describe how I determined transliteration of tea terms from commercial cans of tea written in Arabic, Chinese, Indian etc which had the corresponding English. The fact I did it for decades has nothing to do with the establishment of the group.

Jim

Derek wrote:

"We"? You and who else?

/Lew

I've got a thirty year old commercial brand black tuocha that taste the same as the same version on the shelf today. It aged 10 years in the SouthWest and 20 years in the West. I can't help but think that recommendations on storing puerh is just parrot talk. What else is somebody from HK going to say about humidity and temperature. I worry about exposing any tea to moisture. Any argument on storage can't be settle for 30 years. I've got some certified green tuocha produced in Jan 2000 that I put away as a retirement investment. There will be a date of production if someone buys it and they can read Chinese. Every beengcha I've seen comes in the tissue wrapping. I think a paper bag is all you need for long term storage.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote: ...www meister babble stripped...

storage, as

Space Cowboy:

From an intellectual property perspective (and that's how I make most of my living, such as it is, these days), this is slightly interesting. As others have pointed out here, one can patent an idea, though without a credible embodiment the patent may not withstand challenge from someone who actually does the work to make it work. And an idea is simply not the subject matter of copyright law; that pertains only to the form of expression.

From a creativity perspective, this exchange nicely illustrates a major point in the field: invention ("Gee, I have a clever idea") is not innovation ("I will make this happen"). The space dude may have had the idea of applying the ubiquitous Rosetta Stone concept to tea, though it's hardly plausible that he was the first anywhere to do so. It is certainly insulting to all of us to assume that because he may have used it someplace (please provide the message citation), we could never have come up with the same idea independently.

More to the point, though, Mike P. actually DID THE WORK of exhaustively researching and publishing a completely unique and unprecedented compendium of extremely useful information. And continues to add to it. Space Cowboy might just as well say the he had thought of doing this, hence Mike's hundreds (thousands?) of hours of work were really just derivative.

Personally, I wish Mike _would_ go into business. Nothing more frustrating than reading about great stuff and having no idea where to get the identical product. In fact, I'd pay a premium to buy teas from his site - I've bought some really crap Pu-erh from vendors who just didn't know their stuff. I suspect that Mike may be the single most knowledgeable individual on the subject now residing in the US.

SC - by all means start your own blog. Might divert a troll or two from this list.

-DM

Whatever......

Jim, I have been aware of the Rosetta Stone and it's use as a translation icon long before I ever heard any of your babble. Do a google on it and see how many translation related derivatives show up, it is just as iconic as the Tower Of Babble or the Rock of Gibraltar. Quite honestly I never even thought of your posts when I came up with the idea. Besides picking up a can in a grocery store and deciphering it for your personal benefit is hardly the same thing as spending hours of research and sharing it with the public.

"If" I were to rename my Translation Page to something else will you shut your mouth and leave me alone? I sincerely doubt it, you had it out for me long before this came up!

disingenuous

Why should I bother with a blog, there are already several groups that discuss tea, this is one of them. There is no need to start another just because you don't like me. I dont hear anyone else asking me to leave. The day that a majority asks me to leave, I will!

Self admitted what? All I did was complain about someone who was insinuating that this newsgroup belonged to their business, they have since ceased. I don't mislead anyone. Currently all I offer is lots of honest information. If I ever change that, and someday I might, I will be up front about it and change my posting style accordingly. My posts here are usually just responses to someone requesting information anyway.

Mike

If it is a misunderstanding, it is based upon what you, yourself, have written. You are the one who claimed "I first posted about my cheatsheet of Chinese and English tea terms here in 95" (March 18,

I have read 36 archived posts you made from your email address to this newsgroup in 1995. Perhaps one of your posts slipped past the archive, but I can find no evidence that you did, in fact, post about your cheatsheet in 1995. As far as I can tell, that claim is unsubstantiated. And yet, you used it to bully Mike for something he didn't do.

Now, by March of 2004, you had very specifically conveyed the idea of a "rosetta label," but that hardly gives you ownership of the idea.

You may well have been the first person in this newsgroup to mention the idea, but, by your own admission, you were using it for decades before this group even existed. Do you seriously think you are the only one who used both the concept and the term "rosetta" regarding tea?

I learned of the "rosetta list" concept from my local tea merchant, not from you. He used it on the labels his tea shipped under. And I learned about it from him before you ever posted anything about the idea to this newsgroup.

All of which is moot, because copyright does not protect an idea. Facts, ideas and words are public domain - unless trademarked or patented. Copyright doesn't even recognized distinctiveness of the idea, which is why bookstores have multiple items on the same topic but from different authors.

He didn't violate your copyright, Jim. Nor did he necessarily have to get the idea from you. To insist that he must have reeks of delusional self-aggrandizement.