Tea Mites ???

Hi, Have 8-10 kgs of various forms of Pu'er (cake, brick, tuo) stored in a reasonably tight hardwood cabinet (it's not air-tight). No holes or gaps in the cabinetry. The tea is wrapped in it's original paper wrapping and cartons.

Conditions inside are reasonably stable - but we do get the odd hot day here in summer.

Anyway, I opened a 1990's cooked cake last night, one that had been opened before, and I saw a minute bug, or mite. Very small - I'd say as an estimate in size, say 0.1mm - really tiny. I checked the rest of the cake as best I could and could not see any others.

Is this normal ? If not, is there anything I can do about it?. Our house is kept reasonably clean and we have hardwood floors - so no carpet for things to breed in.

Would appreciate any insight.

Reply to
Mal from Oz
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I don't know about that specific insect, but am certainly concerned about pests in my own stash.

Over the decades, I've had two infestations of flour weevils - little bugs that get into even tightly closed jars. (Good article on such critters at

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They appeared almost simultaneously in rice, flour, pasta, everything dry and farinaceous. The first time was long before the WWW and readily available information on such things. Although an impoverished grad student, I threw out everything, vacuumed the cupboards, and waited a couple of weeks to re-stock. They came back. I realized that fumigation was needed, but didn't want to use any remanent poisons in the kitchen. In the end, I got some dry ice, threw a chunk into each cupboard, and left the doors shut for a couple of days. It worked perfectly - CO2 is quite lethal in high doses.

If I ever find creepy-crawlies in my Pu-erh, I'll probably do the same thing. I'd stack all the boxes in a small closet, put in a few pounds of dry ice, and tape the door shut for a week or two. Dry ice is readily available in most urban areas, cheap, leaves no residue, and (IMO) is very unlikely to induce any changes in the tea itself. On the other hand, CO2 ruins coffee (why European bags have a vent), so I'd probably test it first.

-DM

Reply to
DogMa

Oh, yeah - freezing would probably work pretty well too. Say, three days below zero degrees F, though some bugs are pretty hardy. (USDA and such organizations probably have info published on this.) I just have so much tea now that I'd have to find a walk-in freezer or run a lot of batches through a big cabinet freezer.

-DM

Reply to
DogMa

While this reply has to be guesswork based on first principles rather than experience I would not advise freeze sterilizing pu-erh to kill insects or mites unless it was for immediate consumption (in which case boiling water will suffice). Maturation of pu erh depends on a healthy component of living organisms (good bacteria and fungi) which freezing would kill. Dry tea is not generally attractive to mites; chances are it's the fungi that the mites are eating. In standard tea reducing the moisture would deter any alien insect growth, but again pu erh needs some moisture for its maturation to continue. Carbon dioxide for 72 hours is a standard insect kill method that would not upset the fungi and bacteria too badly but requires the tea to be infused with the gas in an hermeticly sealed vessel (taping up a closet would not contain it or would need an excess of CO2 - which also kills higher life).

CO2 does not ruin coffee - it's oxygen that stales it and quickly. Freshly roasted coffee actually gives off carbon dioxide - the valves are there to stop the pouches from exploding. Before valves the roast coffee was left in the open to give off its gas (degas) for a week before packing but this allowed a week for oxygen to wreak havoc with the quality.

Nigel at Teacraft

Reply to
Nigel

Interesting - while not any kind of microbiologist, it's my impression from a couple of dozen food/drink projects (plus random reading) that pathogenic bacteria and fungi are not usually killed by freezing. Rather, their metabolism and reproduction are suspended for the duration. Is there evidence that the living elements in Pu-erh that (are alleged to) cause beneficial aging could be harmed by freezing?

Perhaps you could amplify here, Nigel. My empirical observation is that this worked fine both times I tried it, without even bothering with tape

- I only mentioned that in case someone has a very loose-fitting closet or cabinet door. The evaporating lumps of dry ice quickly fill whatever space is needed, then continue to emit CO2 until they have sublimated completely. Even then, I suspect that lethal concentration for bugs isn't that much higher than the 10% or so that's fatal to larger life-forms. Leaks and breezes in the average home would probably leave a normal closet or cabinet at that level for a few days, once it was fully "charged" with CO2.

I passed along the comment as cited by senior engineers (not scientists) at what I think was then Europe's largest coffee company, during a 1990s engagement to invent novel packaging and presentation designs. I didn't believe it at the time, and am happy to correct the belief. Perhaps their point was that absent a valve, the (two-way) leak required to avoid bag explosion would allow in too much oxygen.

-DM

Reply to
DogMa

DogMa wrote: [snip]

I'd say also to stack the tea boxes as low as possible in the cabinet, and then put the dry ice on the top shelf, since CO2 is heavier than air and will sink, so that way you'll have both CO2 and coldness on your side.

AP

Reply to
Alan Petrillo

Thanks... Ok, the CO2 seems to be a method to get rid of what I may have, but how does one stop them getting into the tea in the first place ?

Hence the reason for asking if the presence of minute bugs, such as this one, is normal. Obviously weevils are not good, but this one wasn't a weevil - not like you get in flour anyway.

This is the first time I have seen any evidence of any such beasties in the

2 years the tea has been stored. The stash is only opened say once a month, if that - my daily requirements are left out on the bench in clay caddies. My point here is that the opportunity for critters to get in is small - however the one I saw would easily be able to get in. I suppose also that the bugs may have been in the tea when I bought it.

The one I saw could, I suppose, be the one and only..who knows..

..another thing to worry about !

Cheers Mal Oz

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Reply to
Mal from Oz

Funny thing is that some people believe this to be good and keep such bug-eaten pu as a prized part of their stash. Look up the bug poop pu'er threads we've had here in the past.

Reply to
Mydnight

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