Tea Storage
Hey everyone! I was curious on what everyone’s preferred method of storing tea is. I know the key is dark, air tight containers. But $7-10 for one canister is pretty steep in my opinion. I have a couple cannisters, but more tea than that! So how do you all store your tea?
My preferred method is the mason/ball jars. They seem pretty air tight, and you can store about 4 ounces of loose tea in the normal size jar. The only problem is that they allow sunlight in, so you’d have to keep them in a cupboard. Anyone else use the ball jar method?
I use a variety of jars in shapes and sizes and keep them on a dark shelf…luckily the room I keep them in has like zero sunlight, it is nice :)
I really like the jars because it lets me see the tea, plus I can pain labels on them with chalk paint
That’s why I like the jars! I think it looks old fashioned yet elegant…the jars are pretty old fashioned, but seeing the variety and colors of the leaves looks elegant and intriguing. I just wish I had a method to block the light :/
As I keep all my teas in a cupboard I tend to go towards air tight jars as well (it’s dark enough to not have to worry about the light effecting the tea and the cupboard itself is in a dark area too). I love being able to see my tea and it’s a great way to know at a glance what I’m looking at (assuming it’s a blended tea or a fairly unique straight leaf.)
At work though I’ve started picking up latching glass jars (the ones with rubber rings in the lids) from my local dollar store. They’re airtight and come in a small enough size that I don’t take up too much drawer space.
I personally believe the best containers in the world would have to be Miron glass for holding sacred teas and life force sensitive material. Here is a link if you are interested in taking storage to the next level
http://www.vitalitygoods.com/
There are a bunch of tea tins at teavanna on sale right now for like 75% (I think that’s still going ln) and I bought two for like 4 dollars. Pretty good deal if you ask me!
I was in there the other day looking at those because I thought the same thing! But they just seemed kind of cheap to me…I’m not sure how to describe it, but they didn’t seem air-tight enough. I was looking at the Washi paper ones. Their signature purple/silver name brand ones are great though!
I use a mixture of mason jars and airtight metal tins. With the mason jars, I, primarily, leave the tea in its original packaging (usually a mylar bag) and just place the whole thing inside the jar. All the jars/tins are kept in a dark, cool cupboard.
My pu-erh, however, is kept in the same cupboard but, in non-airtight containers.
To chime in on what Amanda Wilson said, I just picked up some chalkboard contact paper and use it (alongside liquid chalk) to label all of my teas! It’s so great! Everything looks so nicely organized! :)
Another thing you could consider doing is putting your tea’s in plastic bags, and then putting it in your storage container. This means you can put multiple teas in one storage unit.
90% of my teas I have in large quantity or plan on restocking are kept in the coloured DAVIDsTEA tins, for a combination of reasons.
Firstly, they’re pretty cheap ($2.50 a tin) and very accessible to me. But another big part of it is that I’m pretty OCD about my organizational system, and the different colours for different tea types is very calming/relaxing to me and convenient for finding which tea I’m looking for.
I also store all my tins, bags/pouches, and sample amounts in a closet in our living room. They have their own shelf, and it always stays shut – so it’s a dark and cold storage place too. The only exception is about 10 teas I keep out at a time on our counter which I rotate bi-weekly as teas to sipdown or just enjoy whenever.
Oh wow, those colored tins look awesome, and you can’t beat that price! How much tea are you able to store in them?
They typically fit about 100g – but sometimes less if it’s a really light tea. For example, they only comfortably fit about 50g of a straight peppermint or spearmint.
If you’re buying from DAVIDsTEA you also get a free silver tin when you buy 100g of a tea, and if you bring an empty tin back to get it refilled you get 50 cents off the cost of the blend.
The only downside, I find, is sometimes (but not too often in my experience) they get bent out of shape before purchase (I guess being poorly handled or something like that) and then aren’t nearly as air tight. But out of the 50+ tins I probably have from them, maybe 2 or 3 are like that…
That’s not too bad. I’ll definitely be considering those…the different colors are really appealing to know which tea you’re dealing with before you even open it. Thanks for the suggestion!
Just as important as what you store the tea in, it’s more important to use it up and not try to store it too long. This is more important the less oxidized the tea is. So, green teas, for example, can lose its freshness and appeal pretty quickly, whereas oolongs, for example, can go quite a while. I don’t buy any more green tea than I can drink in about 90 days, but I’ve had some oolongs for well over a year, and they’re no worse for wear.
Of course, this all depends on how long it took for the tea to get from the maker to your shelf.
And, of course, some teas such as compressed pu-erh are actually best stored in the open, away from disagreeable smells. But, I don’t think that is the kind of tea you are talking about.
With all of that said, I am generally against tins, especially where I live in a coastal region. I could write a diatribe against them, but let it suffice to say that I prefer not to use them. Any glass container is good. We have a cabinet to keep our teas out of the light.
Cheers.
Thanks for the advice…I knew tea could last awhile but I wasn’t as aware about less oxidized teas going stale at a faster rate. I’ll definitely have to keep that in mind when purchasing!
What is there against tins? Curious person here.
I don’t want to derail the conversation, but briefly, here’s my opinion/experience:
First, I love tins aesthetically. In fact, I have a small collection of vintage tins. I just wouldn’t store my tea in them, without sealing it in a bag first.
For the most part, there isn’t a real problem. But, I long suspected it was the case that tea stored in tins took “off” flavours more quickly than tea stored in glass. So, I did a 60-day (approximately) blind taste test with a premium green tea. And, sure enough, there was a slight but clear difference.
Generally, what I’ve found is that certain teas can take on a certain amount of tinny flavour, but I think this has less to do with the tin and more to do with humidity. I live a stone’s throw from the ocean, so, the issue is more pronounced.
My theory: Tins warm and cool quickly, and they are rarely airtight. So, the inside warms during the day, drawing small amounts of moisture from the tea and raising the inside humidity. At night, the tins cool, drawing in air (which is always humid here). A very small amount of moisture condenses on the cool tin, and is absorbed by the tea. So, over time, the trace amount of moisture naturally in the tea, is slowly replaced by moisture which has condensed on metal. And likely, the overall moisture content of the tea increases as well (something I am very aware of with my pu-erh collection).
Keep in mind, I have absolutely NO verification that this is actually why the flavour changes. It’s just my own pseudo-scientific explanation. I just know that it does. And, frankly, the effect is so slight and probably only an issue with a few more delicate teas, that it shouldn’t bother most people.
It doesn’t even really bother me, but given the choice, I don’t use tins. I don’t advise against them. I just don’t use them. My rule (if I have one) is that if I can smell the container, I don’t use it. And, I can smell most tins.
I had some tins in the 80’s but they tended to rust around the edges quickly. As to glass jars not tea but well dried herbs no matter how dry used get a slightly bit moist in glass jars. My dried garden herbs I now keep in paper lunch baggies and know they do keep dry.Tea I think I will bag them when they arrive by mail and just keep the few new tins empty.I find a metallic taste in many things but think it has more to do with my Rx meds.Brent thanks for the reply.
We personally store and ship our teas in metal tin cans. It does the job when it comes to preserving the freshness of our teas.
My 2 preferred methods currently after some trial and error:
1. Glass mason jars thickly coated in chalkboard spray paint. Much more airtight than any metal tins I’ve used. How I store premium green teas.
2. The bags tea comes in (I really like the Lupicia and Steven Smith-type thick relatively narrow opaque stuff), sealed with bag pins (Taiwan Tea Crafts sells some), then stored in stackable metal tins (I use a mix of Specialty Bottle and Harney and Sons ones, with chalkboard contact paper labels so I can color code and relabel easily). Some in larger amounts go in the double-chambered kind of tins, you know, sort of like the Fauchon and Taiwan Tea Crafts ones where you uncap the tin and there’s another lid inside with a pull.
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