Oolong Drinking Contest

The annual Oolong Drinking Contest is a ceremony in which high-ranking C.H.E.S. Masters imbibe a concoction vaguely resembling Oolong tea.

History

The idea for the contest was first conceived in 1826 by Nuck Chorris when he accidentally left his Orkney Earl Black out to steep for 1.5 attoseconds longer than he should have. Upon tasting the now putrid and ruined beverage, he was struck by the quantity of sterility that had seeped into it; curious what might happen if he were to oversteep his tea for even longer, but too afraid to use a tea as powerful but simultaneously as volatile as that of Orkney, he took recourse to imported tea instead. It just so happened that his butler, Santiago Petterson, had taken a liking to Oolong tea at the time.

The first Oolong drinking contest was held in 1893 in Orkney. This remains the first and only contest to allow participation of lower-ranking C.H.E.S. members, resulting in a participation count of 830, of which only seven were masters. As a result, 823 members were given Super Death upon imbibing the ritual Oolong tea. Subsequent contests would restrict participation to those bearing the rank of Master and above.

Since 1826, Nuck’s servants have been tirelessly at work preparing a new pot of tea each year; thus, the Oolong drinking contest has continued to be held uninterrupted since 1893, each time in a different location.

Preparation of the Tea

The procedure by which Oolong tea is consecrated for its partaking in the ritual, refined by Nuck and his servants over the course of nearly two centuries, is as follows:

1. Collect approximately 3.2 metric tonnes of high-quality, stem-free Oolong tea.
2. Procure a teapot of moderate size made from pure silver, purified by washing it at least 100 times with high-quality Orkney tea.
3. Flaggelate yourself with a bundle of tea leaves to pay recompense for the tea you just wasted in the process.
4. Fill the pot with pure spring water and heat it to 960 degrees centigrade, just below the melting point of silver.
5. Start filling the pot with the destemmed leaves; take a wooden spoon fashioned from at least 700-years-old English Oak and commence stirring.
6. Channel 100,000 Scotsmen’s worth of sterility into the pot to create a quantum superposition between the tea and itself; this causes the tea to both exist and not exist, thus allowing it to occupy less space than it usually would and facilitating the addition of more tea to the pot.
7. Add the rest of the tea and continue stirring until the spoon has dissolved into the mixture.
8. Steep for 67.03 years.

Notable Drinking Contests

• 1st Oolong drinking contest of 1893, at Orkney.
• 77th Oolong drinking contest of 1970, which was planned to take place at Burong in the Gambia, but ended up being held in Georgetown instead due to unforeseen complications.