Some 10 years ago I worked at a restaurant where they had a bunch of tea bags that no one really ever drank. One of those teas was a box of something like 100 bags of Foo Joy Bonay (aka Puer) tea. At the time, I didn't really drink much tea, but the restaurant closed its doors and I ended up taking the puer tea bags with me. The bags sat and sat, and occasionally I would drink some, but largely they just sat in the various places I've lived since then. THEN, I started drinking tea heavily, and eventually puer tea--both shu and then sheng--and now I feel that those bags of puer were not half bad. In fact, compared with any other shu puer I've had, they seem to have a more complex flavor that isn't very strong, but which seems to have hints of a menthol- like taste sometimes and also a taste I associate with cinnamon (though it clearly is not cinnamon). The shu puer that I otherwise have is much more musty and kind of flat tasting. What I'm wondering now is whether the things I like about these Foo Joy tea bags are related to the fact that the tea is probably from the mid-1990s, or whether I could go track down a new box of Foo Joy tea and find that it tastes the same. More broadly, my question is: does the "cooked" flavor of shu puer diminish significantly after several years of relatively dry (in some cases, very dry) storage? Unfortunately, I only have three of those cooked puer bags left. I am not sure how easy it will be to find a replacement, but hopefully it will taste as good as the stuff I have now (and I can't imagine it will be expensive at all). Should I look for the oldest box on the shelf in some dusty Asian market?
-cha bing