Shelf life of loose teas?

Greetings, all,

I was wondering how long tinned or bagged teas will last once the seals are broken. I have some old Darjeeling in a large tin that still brews satisfactorily, even though there's more air in the tin than tea. From what I've noticed, tea has quite a shelf life.

Carl / tooo many 'o's in yahoo ;p

Reply to
carl
Loading thread data ...

To really address the issue we need to discuss the chemical and physical changed that tea undergo during storage and how that affects the features of the brewed tea. Since black, green, wulong and puerh teas are so very different in both physical and chemical senses and the resulting brew is enjoyed in different ways, there is no single answer. Few people realize, though, that teas (especially wulongs) can be surprisingly strongly envigorated by mild roasting and other heat threatments. Many a tea merhant re-roast their teas somethimes more than once.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

It depends on the conditions both before and after the seals are broken: light, heat, air, & moisture all contribute to a shorter shelf life.

Reply to
Bluesea

carl61f88$42751718$d1699fd9$ snipped-for-privacy@I2EYENET.COM/1/05 13:51nor snipped-for-privacy@yahooo.com

I've found the same, but I wonder if it isn't more a reflection on my great expansive liberalism than on the quality of the tea. Placing a freshly opened green tea beside the same one opened and exposed to air for months would tell the tale. Aroma goes first, taste goes slowly after that. Super-fresh is surely best, especially in the case of greens. In one of our local Indian shops, I once found Darjeeling wrapped in light paper cubes dated ten or twelve years prior to my observation. What can I say?

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

I don't know the scientific info on it, but I can tell you what the tea bosses around here say.

Tie Guan Yin, about a year. The freshness is a deciding factor on what the final price will be at market, and anything over a year is relatively worthless.

Wulong, strange. There are some types of Wulong that are better if they have been aged, apparently. Generally, the Taiwan Wulongs will last for about a year before they are too old.

Green, two years.

Pu'er, the elder the better.

Keep in mind, this is from some bosses who are hardly scientists; some of who are hardly honest. heh.

Reply to
Mydnight

Cowboy -

Try to roast older TGY and you will absolutely love it (my experience). I am yet to decide which method (actual roasting or microwave) is better, but they both work. It looks like actual roasting works better with green teas. I am strating to think (you heard it from me first!) that may be it makes sense to introduce a new procedure into normal brewing of tea -

  1. Take out of container
  2. Roast in microwave or other heater
  3. Do whatever you do normally (wash chahu, wash tea, brew...)

Certainly that step could not be a part of traditional way of handling tea - there were no microwaves in Kun Zi times and untill very recently there were no supereasy access to fast and supereasy way of heating things in the matter of seconds.

Anyway - I am an experimental conservative :)

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

I'll give it a go and tell you want I think. The reason I may just throw it out is because the tea that I had acquired was pretty low quality anyway; all the more reason to experiement, I guess!

Reply to
Mydnight

Tea should be drank fresh. This is true for green, black, oolong and white teas. The only exception is the Chinese black tea pu erh. Classical "pu erh" or its subset "tuo cha" is kept for decades (like fine red wine) in China until its taste is extremely mellow. Exceptionally fine aged-pu erh is very rare. One of such pu erh tea brick can cost $300+. You can find out more about tea at "Tea University" at

formatting link

Greg

Reply to
greg.thepunisher

Greg,

I agree about drinking fresh green, oolong, white tea, yellow..But, for black tea, that is, if you are talking about real black tea, the older the better for some of them.

If you are referring to red tea in fact, then i would suggest you to try an aged zheng shan xiao zhong (lapsang souchong) and a fresh one. The aged one is much better.

They are some green tea that are better aged, such as raw pu erh (which is more valuable than cooked pu erh) or another green tea that is unknown to the west called koo loo tea from Guangdong province.

SEb

Reply to
SEb

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups. com5/3/05 01: snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com

Hi Greg,

I'd like to add to what you say here and suggest that another exception is Keemun, which, according to received wisdom as well as my experience, improves quite nicely with some age on it. You can easily add a zero to your $300+, by the way. Try to get your hands on an authentic 1950's cake for under a thousand, and I'll bow to you.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

Dear Greg -

There are very little truths in any statement that do not take into consideration the variety of tastes and sheer enormity of tea experience. There is no such thing as "something should be done this way". There is always fine points, exceptions, new interesting variations. Tea does not tolerate authoritarian approach. Good luck with your "Tea University".

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Well, okay, but I'm still gonna think that brewing tea loose is good and using a teaball is bad.

Heh ;).

Reply to
Bluesea

Good tea in teaball is better than bad tea brewed loose.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

I too have been experimenting with this procedure on some very coarse, very cheap, green tea procured from a local Middle East grocery. It may be of Ceylon origin, but I threw the box away and so can't confirm at the moment. At any rate, roasting briefly before brewing transforms this very mundane tea into something...almost remarkable. They details are still being ironed out, but when I nail down the technique, I'll report back.

Microwaving I've yet to try. I have no aversion to this contemporary contraption, but some year ago my trials on roasting sesame seeds in the microwave failed, and so I'm a bit doubtful.

--crymad

Reply to
crymad

With all due respect, there is no such thing as raw pu erh. My family is in the tea plantation business for four generations. I have worked in our plantation for over 20 years. May be you are refering to green pu erh. It's colour looks like green tea. But that is the biggest misconception of tea outside China. Many, many decades ago some influential tea merchants who did not fully understand tea were telling people of the world the main difference between green tea, oolong tea, black tea, and white tea. Now every book, and every website uses the same definition--the major difference is in the fermentation of the tea leaves. However, this definition is extremely over simplified, misleading and mostly incorrect. The major difference between the different teas are that they all comes from different tea plants. Teas like apples, peaches and pears have many, many different varities. Some varities are perfect for green teas, while others are great for white teas, and still others are ideal for red teas (mostly refer to as black teas in the West). This white tea varities will never be used to make green teas and vice versa. Even in the green tea family there are countless sub-varities. This is only true in China, and Taiwan. India is now growing green tea, and white tea, but their altered varities work differently, and can never be as superior as the thousands of green teas in China.

For people who are truely interested in the finest teas in the world, they should visit China many famous tea garden (plantations) the next time they are in the country. Most plantations welcome foreigners for visits.

I do agree that zheng shan xiao zhong (lapsang souchong) is a good tea if people could find it at a fine tea merchant--it is not an easy tea to locate in North America. And the Koo Loo tea is very nice. It has a floral aroma. But again this tea is not catagorized as green. In its purest classification, this is a fully-fermented red tea; however, in the West, red tea is consider black tea. In North America, for the sake of simplication, yellow teas, and red teas do not exist at the current time.

In most case, you seem very knowledgeable about tea. It took me many decades to truely understand the nuances, and I was literally borned in a tea plantation in Fujian.

Greg

Reply to
greg.thepunisher

Are you crazy. Why would anyone wants to pay so much. My family has operated a leading tea plantation in China for many generations, and yes Keemun is an excellent tea by itself or mix with Ceylon and other Indian teas to make the famous "English Breakfast Tea". Keemun is rarely found in cake forms. Tea is such an individual think, if you like it aged, go for it., but I would not pay anything over $100. Actually I do have a number of authentic keemun tea dating back to the

1940s, 50s, and 60s. It is something that we put on display. I never had any plans of consuming it because I don't think it would taste any good.
Reply to
greg.thepunisher

Are you crazy. Why would anyone wants to pay so much. My family has operated a leading tea plantation in China for many generations, and yes Keemun is an excellent tea by itself or mix with Ceylon and other Indian teas to make the famous "English Breakfast Tea". Keemun is rarely found in cake forms. Tea is such an individual think, if you like it aged, go for it., but I would not pay anything over $100. Actually I do have a number of authentic keemun tea dating back to the

1940s, 50s, and 60s. It is something that we put on display. I never had any plans of consuming it because I don't think it would taste any good.

Greg

Reply to
greg.thepunisher

Well taken. Tea is a very individual experience. "Tea University" is not my thing. I just came across it while I'm studying commerce at UCLA. Just thought it was an informative site.

Greg

Reply to
greg.thepunisher

Greg,

I'm not sure what you mean by "there is no such thing as 'raw' pu erh," but I suggest you visit Mike Petro's web site to clear up whatever misconceptions you have about our use of the term.

Michael

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups. com5/4/05 04: snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com

Reply to
Michael Plant

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups. com5/4/05 04: snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com

Perhaps. But, it has little or nothing to do with tea.

When I spoke of aged Keemun, I was thinking of a year or so, not decades. Sorry I confused you. I'd imagine a 1940's Keemun would be dead. How about some nice 1940's or 1950's green Pu'erh cakes? Also, as you say, I never had to pay great prices for great Keemun.

By the way, when you post a response, please leave some of the original post for context. That will make it easier for us to know what your refer to.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.