Mal from Oz wrote:
> ... I opened a 1990's cooked cake last night, one that had been opened
> before, and I saw a minute bug, or mite. Very small - I'd say as an estimate
> in size, say 0.1mm - really tiny. I checked the rest of the cake as best I
> could and could not see any others.
>
> Is this normal ? If not, is there anything I can do about it?

I don't know about that specific insect, but am certainly concerned
about pests in my own stash.

Over the decades, I've had two infestations of flour weevils - little
bugs that get into even tightly closed jars. (Good article on such
critters at www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/home/e300w.htm.)

They appeared almost simultaneously in rice, flour, pasta, everything
dry and farinaceous. The first time was long before the WWW and readily
available information on such things. Although an impoverished grad
student, I threw out everything, vacuumed the cupboards, and waited a
couple of weeks to re-stock. They came back. I realized that fumigation
was needed, but didn't want to use any remanent poisons in the kitchen.
In the end, I got some dry ice, threw a chunk into each cupboard, and
left the doors shut for a couple of days. It worked perfectly - CO2 is
quite lethal in high doses.

If I ever find creepy-crawlies in my Pu-erh, I'll probably do the same
thing. I'd stack all the boxes in a small closet, put in a few pounds of
dry ice, and tape the door shut for a week or two. Dry ice is readily
available in most urban areas, cheap, leaves no residue, and (IMO) is
very unlikely to induce any changes in the tea itself. On the other
hand, CO2 ruins coffee (why European bags have a vent), so I'd probably
test it first.

-DM