How lovely to have grown up with a tree nearby! When you say they're even better chilled, is it just the fact of enjoying them cool on a hot day, or is the flavor somehow changed/improved by being chilled?

Apparently they're really full of pectin, too, which makes it very easy to turn them into jams and jellies.

The fading of the shining happens with horse chestnuts (conkers) too--they are **so** richly red-brown, positively polished, and then they lose that shine. So they'd be perfect for fairy jewelry, I guess--beautiful until it fades.