You are not smoking that meer hard at only a few times a day. There was a time English officers used subordinates to keep a meer constantly in use 24/7. They wanted the meers to color quickly and look older than they were. The beauty of a meerschaum is that you can't over smoke them. I think meers are quite ugly until they gain some coloring and, the fun is in not knowing how it will color. I'm a fan of letting the pipes color naturally, many can't wait and use waxes or, other artificial means for "top" coloring until the tobacco residues do their thing. Whatever turns one's crank I suppose.