Tiffanie

The Tiffanie is a friendly and affectionate. They love attention and need to be part of the family. They can be quite demanding and often follow their owners around the house crying for attention. If spoken to, they often appear to understand and answer. Asians are very intelligent and can often work out such problems as how to open doors. Their curiosity and friendliness can lead them to stray into visitor's cars or delivery vans and they may be best confined to the house or a secure garden. They usually settle quite happily to this arrangement, as above all they do love their home comforts. They love to play, and toys and scratching post should be provided for amusement as well as quality time set aside for play with their humans. They can be very sensitive to their owner's feelings, and this makes them excellent companions. They are generally good with children and when fed up with the rough and tumble of play with human children will stalk off until peace resumes.

The Asian cats are of medium build, showing their Burmese ancestry. The head forms a short wedge shape, with large to medium ears, set so as to continue the line of the face. The medium to long tail is plumed. The eyes are set well apart and are neither almond-shaped nor round. The eyes may be any colour from yellow through to green. The body is firm and muscular with a strong straight back. The legs are of medium length and paws are oval.

7 to 12 years

Tiffanies come in a variety of colours and patterns including all the variants of tabby pattern, smoke, tipped and self colours and the silver shaded type.

The semi-long-haired Tiffanie does require some attention but not as much the full longhaired coats of the Persians. A comb and soft brush will keep the coat in good order and if showing a Tiffanie, a bath may be necessary.

The Asians have no specific health care problems and, like the Burmese, live well into their teens. As with all cats it is a good idea to have an annual health check from about the age of eight.

Asians are active cats and require 80 Kcals per kg of bodyweight per day of food. These cats are not generally prone to obesity and regulate their own diets very well.

The Tiffanie is the only semi-longhaired member of the Asian Group. The Asian Group was created by accident when a male Chinchilla had a clandestine meeting with a lilac female Burmese. The kittens were so attractive that they quickly won the hearts of all who saw them, and new homes were found for them all. In fact, so much interest was generated that a repeat mating was done and from there a new breed was formed. The kittens looked more like the Burmese than the Chinchilla and had the inquisitive, friendly Burmese temperament but they had the stunning silver colouring and the tipped markings of the Chinchilla. During the course of the Asian breeding programme, some litters contained kittens with longer coats, and these cats were used to produce this attractive new breed.

The Tiffanie is almost a by-product in the creation of another breed, the Burmilla. Burmilla breeders set out to produce a short-coated cat with the silver shaded coat pattern of the Chinchilla Persian and so to do this, breeders crossed Burmese cats with the Chinchilla Persian types. The short-coated kittens became Burmilla’s, the long coats, Tiffanies. The breed is sometimes mistaken for the now extinct Chantilly-Tiffany, which was a chocolate-coloured semi-long hair with a distinctive coat that lacked undercoat.