/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>19373793
>the whole point for me to buy tongs is to not open them.
Even if you open them so long as you ration the tea it will last a long time. Opening the tong wont prevent the tea from aging. If you really hate opening the tong buy an extra cake or two to sample as the tea ages.

>>19374210
>What's the median experience when obtaining a tong?
Whenever you want to, but probably not before you are sure you wont get bored of tea and regret it.

>Or the flexibility that it could be any of those things?
I think that is probably the best answer. You don't need to get into tongs but they can be nice if you have a reason to. The closest thing to a traditional tong I have is a sleeve of this ( https://www.chawangshop.com/2006-myanmar-kokang-mei-hua-bing-raw-puerh-tea-100g.html ) I bought before the owner hiked the price. I am generally happy just buying single cakes and prefer having lots of variety but here are some reasons why I personally may consider buying a tong:
>I really like a tea and want to stock up before its gone because it may be hard to replace.
>I like the tea and it is a really good deal right now but will probably go up significantly in price.
>I want to try my hands at aging my own tea.
>The sentimental/aesthetic value of having your own aged tea that you have kept for decades.
I do have a tea I have my eye on grabbing a tong off once I have more money. The tea in question is not great now (currently in the bland middle aged stage) but is cheap and I think it has potential in another decade or two. Not really in a hurry to grab it though as I would rather have more interesting teas now and there are other cheap teas I could age if I really want to even if this one sold out.

I finally got my chawang package. hopefully i will be able to post some tasting notes this weekend.

the way the Myanmar Kokang tong is wrapped is rather interesting. first off there is paper lining under bamboo leaves. additionally the wrapper of the last cake on exposed end (the other end has the bamboo leaves folded over) is not fully wrapped around the cake itself. instead it is wrapped against the rest of the stack instead (leaving the back of the first cake exposed and touching the wrapper of the next cake on the inside). because of this when the tong is snugged down the first wrapper surrounding the top of the stack is held tightly in place and prevents any of the cakes from falling out the top. i was surprised at how hard to was to wiggle the top cake out. i still managed to get it out without dissembling the tong though. not sure why they didn't just cover the top with bamboo leaf which would be more protective anyways, probably just wanted to show off the wrapper.