If you appreciate tea and consume tea on a regular basis, you will certainly want to preserve your collection as best as possible. Whether you keep your collection hidden in the office or at home, you absolutely need to read – how to store your high-value tea leaves.

According to Ottilie Cunningham, tea and coffee buyer and global tea expert for well-known tea brand Fortnum & Mason: The best way to store tea is in airtight tins and dark jars; store in a dry storage room or cupboard. Tea should not be stored in the refrigerator unless it is a rare blend. Proper storage methods are critical to the shelf life, quality and flavour of your tea. Learn how to keep your expensive teas fresh and delicious with these easy tea storage tips.

4 Essential Tips for Storing High-Value Tea - ABoxTik 一盒精品 2

How do you Presere Premium Tea?

The Importance of Properly Storing High-Value Tea Leaves

Typically, the moisture content of dry tea leaves purchased from the market is between 3% and 5%, which already prevents the tea leaves from deteriorating after drying. However, because the tea leaves are well dried, they have a strong hygroscopicity, meaning they easily absorb moisture from the air when stored in a humid environment. This is why storing high-quality tea leaves in clean, dry, and sealed containers is the most important aspect of preserving tea leaves, to prevent them from absorbing too much moisture.

How to Properly Store and Purchase Tea Leaves?

When storing tea leaves with other items in storage, keep the tea leaves away from any strongly scented or flavored items. Due to their dryness, tea leaves easily absorb other odors. The most common mistake is storing tea with medicinal items, which can unintentionally impart medicinal flavors to the brewed tea!

If you want to enjoy the best flavor of tea leaves, choose locally produced or seasonal tea leaves as much as possible. The fresher the tea, the better. Regardless of how well tea leaves are stored, their quality will still be affected by freshness. That’s why we always find the tea served in tea shops to be of the best flavor, while the flavor of tea leaves stored at home diminishes over time.

If you’re not someone who regularly consumes large quantities of tea leaves, it’s recommended to purchase smaller quantities of individually packaged tea leaves, such as a box of premium single-serving tea bags. Only restock your supply when it’s running low, ensuring that you always enjoy the freshest tea.

In the sanctuary of preservation, Premium Tea finds solace, where air is soft and whispers of time stand still, a sacred space where flavor blossoms and essence endures, preserving the legacy of leaves kissed by the sun and dew.

What is Tea Knowedge?

Methods for Preserving High-Value Tea Leaves

If we were to delve into the factors affecting tea leaves, we must mention light, heat, humidity, odors, and air, as these five conditions greatly impact the shelf life of tea leaves. Below are a few simple steps to properly store your premium tea leaves, ensuring that all the processing efforts by the tea artisans are fully retained in your teacup when you brew the tea leaves, and ensuring that your investment in tea doesn’t go to waste, delivering the unique quality of premium tea leaves.

1. Keep Dry – Tea Leaf Storage Method

Most tea leaves are dried or roasted during processing, so tea leaves arrive in consumers’ hands in completely dry conditions, which helps maintain the freshness of the tea leaves and allows them to be stored for a long time. To prolong this good quality, store tea leaves in sealed containers to prevent moisture from entering and damaging the tea leaves.

Sealed tea canisters are also a good way to store unused tea leaves. Additionally, if you have desiccants or similar items, you can place them in the tea canister to ensure the tea leaves remain dry.

Moisture is the most common cause of quality issues with tea leaves. Unlike regular brewed beverages, tea leaves generally have very stable quality because they are very dry. Many people choose to gift premium tea gift boxes, but tea leaves are prone to absorbing moisture from the air in daily life. Keeping tea leaves away from humid areas will benefit you. Unless you intend to brew the tea leaves immediately, you should not put them in any liquid water.

2. Keep Dark – Tea Leaf Storage Method

Exposure to sunlight or indoor light is another practice that can degrade the freshness of premium tea leaves. In addition to storing tea in sealed containers, ensure that the tea canister is in a non-reflective or opaque container to minimize the exposure of premium tea leaves to light.

Light and ultraviolet rays will quickly degrade tea leaves. Avoid storing tea leaves in transparent glass or plastic containers to prevent premium tea leaves from deteriorating, unless you plan to store the tea leaves in an opaque cabinet.

3. Keep Away from Air – Tea Leaf Storage Method

In addition to heat and moisture, you also need to keep premium tea leaves as far away from air as possible, as oxygen in the air will oxidize various active ingredients in the tea leaves, causing changes in flavor. This is why many tea suppliers store tea leaves in vacuum-sealed tea bags to minimize the chances of tea leaves coming into contact with air.

If we have already opened a sealed bag of tea leaves, when storing, try to squeeze out as much air from the bag as possible, then roll up and seal the bag perfectly with a sealing clip.

Tea easily absorbs odors, a characteristic that allows tea leaves to emit a natural tea aroma when placed in a certain area. However, this also means that storing tea in the vicinity of spice cabinets, trash cans, or other heavily scented areas is likely to absorb odors from those areas, increasing the chances of tea absorbing moisture and odors when exposed to air.

4. Keep Cool – Tea Leaf Storage Method

Premium tea leaves should be kept cool, ideally stored between 10°C and 25°C. Basic chemistry tells us that high temperatures accelerate chemical reactions, including the decomposition of tea leaf components. Storing premium tea leaves in a cool place will keep the tea leaves fresh for a longer period of time.

With delicate care, Preserving Premium Tea becomes an art, where each leaf is cradled in whispers of silk, sealed in jars of memories, safeguarding the essence of nature’s bounty for moments yet to unfold.

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Taiwanese excellence recommended to tea collectors

Taiwan is famous for its tea, and many people often choose high-grade tea from Taiwan as souvenirs that represent Taiwan. ABoxTik carefully selects local tea farmers and rigorously professional tea makers from Taiwan to achieve tea perfection. A variety of teas can be mix-matched, and presented in beautiful minimalistic packaging. We welcome you to ABoxTik’s official website to discover our range of Taiwanese tea.