How to store your tea correctly?Как правильно хранить чай?

Here are some general rules, and we will look at nuances for storing each type of tea separately below.

1. Smells Dry tea leaves have great ability to absorb smells, so try to keep tea in places, where other smells, especially of spices or aromatic foods, are minimised. If you leave your tea next to a curry powder, you will most definitely find that soon you will have a curry tasting tea.

2. Air and Moisture Store tea in air tight tea caddies, special bags foiled from inside, or metal boxes. Too much air is not good for tea leaves, as well as moisture.

3. Light Avoid glass containers. Tea is sensitive to light, and if you keep it in daylight, it will lose its taste and aroma, and you will end up with dull and tasteless tea. If you really like using glass jars then make sure they are kept in dark places.

4. Temperature Dry tea leaves like coolness. Especially light teas, like white, green, yellow and light oolongs.

And now let's look at nuances for each type of tea:

Ideal storage for Te Guan Yin (light oolong) and Taiwanese oolongs is in a vacuum bag and in a freezer. This is especially true, if you are planning to keep this tea for longer than 2 months.

White, Green and Yellow teas should be stored in a cool place (cooler than room temperature), but not necessarily in a fridge.

However, please keep in mind that all this is true if you intend to keep your tea for longer periods. If you are planning to drink your tea immediately, then these factors are not that important!

When storing Wu Yi Rock or Phoenix Dan Chong Oolong teas the attention should be paid to the air-tightness of containers or packaging. These are teas that are negatively affected by air. They are stored at room temperature.

Also, keep in mind that these dark oolongs are very fragile. So if you store them in a soft bag, it's best not to put anything on top, as dry tea leaves can break easily. And it is the wholeness of the leaf that is so valuable in these teas. The ideal packaging for them is a hard container, so that they don't get squeezed and broken. This is also one of the reasons why Wu Yi Rock and Phoenix teas are never packed in vacuum bags, as fragile tea leaves would break in such a packaging.

Puerhs and Red teas are the least demanding in terms of storage. They can be stored at room temperature and moisture, in an airtight package or not, the most important thing being that there are no smells. As one of the guys from realchinatea said, Puerhs are best kept on a bookshelf, preferably with classics, somewhere between Shakespeare and Dickens... :))

As for those who intend to keep their Shen Puerhs and age them at home, you need to keep the moisture in a room above 20-30%. However in UK it shouldn't be a problem at all!

Hopefully this helped to understand the storage of teas better!

Here are some general rules, and we will look at nuances for storing each type of tea separately below.

1. Smells Dry tea leaves have great ability to absorb smells, so try to keep tea in places, where other smells, especially of spices or aromatic foods, are minimised. If you leave your tea next to a curry powder, you will most definitely find that soon you will have a curry tasting tea.

2. Air and Moisture Store tea in air tight tea caddies, special bags foiled from inside, or metal boxes. Too much air is not good for tea leaves, as well as moisture.

3. Light Avoid glass containers. Tea is sensitive to light, and if you keep it in daylight, it will lose its taste and aroma, and you will end up with dull and tasteless tea. If you really like using glass jars then make sure they are kept in dark places.

4. Temperature Dry tea leaves like coolness. Especially light teas, like white, green, yellow and light oolongs.

And now let's look at nuances for each type of tea:

Ideal storage for Te Guan Yin (light oolong) and Taiwanese oolongs is in a vacuum bag and in a freezer. This is especially true, if you are planning to keep this tea for longer than 2 months.

White, Green and Yellow teas should be stored in a cool place (cooler than room temperature), but not necessarily in a fridge.

However, please keep in mind that all this is true if you intend to keep your tea for longer periods. If you are planning to drink your tea immediately, then these factors are not that important!

When storing Wu Yi Rock or Phoenix Dan Chong Oolong teas the attention should be paid to the air-tightness of containers or packaging. These are teas that are negatively affected by air. They are stored at room temperature.

Also, keep in mind that these dark oolongs are very fragile. So if you store them in a soft bag, it's best not to put anything on top, as dry tea leaves can break easily. And it is the wholeness of the leaf that is so valuable in these teas. The ideal packaging for them is a hard container, so that they don't get squeezed and broken. This is also one of the reasons why Wu Yi Rock and Phoenix teas are never packed in vacuum bags, as fragile tea leaves would break in such a packaging.

Puerhs and Red teas are the least demanding in terms of storage. They can be stored at room temperature and moisture, in an airtight package or not, the most important thing being that there are no smells. As one of the guys from realchinatea said, Puerhs are best kept on a bookshelf, preferably with classics, somewhere between Shakespeare and Dickens... :))

As for those who intend to keep their Shen Puerhs and age them at home, you need to keep the moisture in a room above 20-30%. However in UK it shouldn't be a problem at all!

Hopefully this helped to understand the storage of teas better!