since even the green leaf, the cells are dehydrated, probably proteins,enzymes, etc are inactive,
would light have any effect on it anymore? (maybe not continuous direct sunlight since that has alot of energy and radiation), but light from light bulbs in the kitchen/ or those fluorescent tubes at supermarkets...
I'm not a scientist (don't even play one on TV) but I keep all forms of light away from my tea. Air, light, smells all are on my no-no list. Again, I go with the "old school" ways of tea storage... they used opaque containers and they were generally air tight (or close to it). If it worked for a couple hundred/thousand years then it's good enough for me. I do use clear glass jars with screw on tops and they stay in their own fairly sealed cabinet.
Beyond staying out of direct sunlight which is #1 on my list, I keep two or more jars of each tea so that only what is being used gets exposed to air at any time.
HTH,
- Dominic
I am a scientist, or at least I play one in the lab, and I agree with everything Dominic said. Intensity/brightness is different from photon energy. Further, AFAIK, staling reactions in tea are non-biological - it doesn't matter if there's no life happening. (With Pu-erh, who knows?)
Basically, any light of wavelength shorter than deep red is capable of doing photochemistry on large molecules. It might be very slow under incandescent light, but still an issue. In art conservation, people know that even yellowish filament bulbs can cause more damage than bluer fluorescents, as the latter are UV-filtered and the former still produce a tiny amount of UV.
Photochemical damage is cumulative - doesn't fade away - and photoproducts can have strikingly bad tastes and smells. (Ask any beer aficionado what happens to bottled ale when left in the light too long.) Dark is best, whether via opaque containers or cabinets.
-DM
cool! thanks, i didnt know there are non-biological effects.
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