How to Store Loose Leaf Tea? - 7 Kind of Tea
Tea is known as one of the top three beverages in the world. This is not only because of the variety of flavours of tea, but also because tea has nutritional value for people. Tea contains a large number of biologically active ingredients, including tea polyphenols, tea pigments, amino acids, tea polysaccharides, tea saponins, alkaloids and many other active ingredients. But do you really store the tea you buy? Do you feel that the flavour of your tea changes every so often? In fact, different teas have different storage methods as well as storage conditions, so pick up your tea right now and see what kind of tea it is, and follow me to learn what methods you should use to store your natural beverage!
Factors Affecting Tea Storage
The first thing you need to know is that tea, like coffee, requires specific storage conditions. Let's start by understanding what are the factors that cause tea to spoil.
- Light: light exposure will accelerate the various chemical reactions in the tea, the chlorophyll in the tea is easy to fade after light exposure.
- Oxygen: too much contact with oxygen will cause oxidation reaction of tea leaves and thus deterioration.
- Moisture: When the content of water in tea leaves exceeds 5%, it will promote the oxidation of enzymes in tea leaves, which will change the colour and flavour of tea leaves.
- Temperature: Tea leaves turn brown at high temperatures, and low temperature refrigeration can slow down the discolouration and ageing of tea leaves.
- Odour contamination: Tea is highly absorbent, which causes it to easily absorb the flavour of nearby items, do you put tea together with your snacks? Or even with coffee? Please don't! This can all lead to a change in the flavour of the tea.
Tea storage methods
Based on the above mentioned factors that affect the deterioration of tea. We know that to store tea well you need to keep it away from light, insulate it from oxygen as much as possible, keep it dry, keep it at room temperature or at a cooler temperature and store it airtight.
Some of the storage methods we often use at home are:
Plastic bag, aluminium foil bag storage
Choose plastic food bags with closure or zip, pay attention to the quality of the plastic bags, do not buy bags with bad smell, and the sealing of the bags should be good enough. After filling the tea leaves you need to pay attention to remove the excess air inside, you just need to squeeze the bag to expel the air before sealing. However, clear bags need to be protected from sunlight and are recommended to be kept in your cupboard. Another good way to store your tea is to refrigerate it in aluminium foil pouches and brew it in batches.
Use metal tins for storage
Tin cans, stainless steel cans, and good quality tin cans are all great options. If you have just purchased a jar, or have already used one, clean it first with hot soapy water, dry the jar completely and then pour a small amount of crushed tea leaves from the type of tea you wish to store into the jar. Put the lid on and shake it up and down to allow it to come into contact with the jar, removing any odours and leaving the aroma of the tea behind. Finally pour in your tea and close the lid with an airtight seal. It's even better if you add a sealed plastic bag inside. It is worth noting that the metal cans with tea should be placed in a cool place, not in direct sunlight, odours, humidity, heat sources, so that the tin cans are not easy to rust, but also to slow down the speed of aging and deterioration of the tea. In addition, tin cans are dense materials, moisture, oxidation, light blocking, anti-odour has a very good effect.
Ceramic altar storage method
Choose a dry, odourless, airtight ceramic altar. With kraft paper to the tea package, placed in the altar around the middle of the embedded lime bag, the top and then put the tea bag, filled with altar, with cotton bags cover tightly. Lime every 1-2 months replacement. This method uses lime hygroscopic properties, so that the tea is not damp, the effect is better, can maintain the quality of tea for a longer period of time, especially Longjing and some other valuable tea, the use of this method is particularly appropriate.
Low temperature storage method
Tea storage environment to keep below 5 ℃, that is, the use of cold storage or freezer to save tea. Storage time in six months or less, the refrigerated temperature should be 0-5 ℃ is good. For storage periods longer than six months, a temperature of -10 ℃ to -18 ℃ is preferred. The best method is to prepare a separate freezer for the tea, and if it is to be stored together with other food or tea, it should be sealed and then refrigerated. If you are purchasing a large amount of tea at one time, it is recommended that you divide the tea into smaller packets before refrigerating. Take out one packet of tea that needs to be brewed at a time, so as to avoid the tea absorbing too much water due to repeated thawing. Tea leaves taken out of cold storage should be opened when they are close to room temperature. Failure to do so also tends to cause the tea to condense and increase its moisture content.
It is worth noting that not all teas are suitable for low temperature storage method, in fact for different tea varieties, the storage method temperature is not the same. This is because some teas are roasted and refrigeration can affect the flavour. Next we talk in detail about the storage methods for different varieties of tea and the best time to quote.
How to store different types of tea
Green Tea
Storage: Put it in the refrigerator. If the preservation time is short and you need to drink it at any time, you can put the green tea into the freezer and adjust the temperature to about 5°C. If it is unopened tea and you want to keep it for more than one year, you should put it in the freezer.
Best time to drink: 1-2 months after opening, within one year if unopened.
Precautions:
1. you can use quicklime to absorb the moisture of the tea leaves, pack them in aluminised composite bags with deoxidiser and place them in the freezer, which can maintain the quality of the tea leaves for up to about two years.
2. if you want to store famous green tea at home, you can use quicklime hygroscopic storage method. Specific operation is to choose a sealed container, such as tile jar, porcelain altar or no odour of the iron cylinder, etc., the quicklime block in a cloth bag, and then wrapped in kraft paper tea on top of the cloth bag, and then together into the container, and finally seal the mouth of the container, placed in a cool and dry environment or refrigerator can be. In this way, you can better maintain the freshness and taste of the green tea, so that the tea leaves emit the best aroma and flavour.
Yellow Tea
Storage: Keep in the fridge
Best Drinking Time: Drink it within a year
Precautions: Put the preservative in the tea bag and seal it, put it in an aluminium foil bag before putting it into a container, then also put a clean plastic bag over the outside and tie it tightly, and put it directly into the refrigerator (the temperature is best controlled at about 5°C) for storage. Avoid refrigeration with other foods to avoid the tea adsorbing odours.
White Tea
Storage: Store at room temperature.
Best drinking time: New white tea is normally around 2-3 years. Old white tea can be stored for a long time under professional storage.
Precautions: Protected from light, dry, it is recommended to use transparent bags tied (sealed), then set a layer of aluminium bags tied (light), and finally installed cardboard boxes (moisture absorption)
Oolong tea
Storage: room temperature storage, tin cans, tin cans, porcelain cans double cover tinplate tea cans.
Best Drinking Time: Best to drink within 3 years after opening.
Precautions:
1. The chlorophyll in oolong tea will undergo a photocatalytic reaction once it comes into contact with light, so keeping it out of the light is crucial for preserving oolong tea.
2. In addition to protection from direct sunlight, protection from moisture is an absolute must. Oolong tea is classified as a semi-fermented tea, so it doesn't need to be stored with special care like unfermented tea. On the contrary, oolong tea is relatively easy to store. When canning, special attention needs to be paid to the fact that the tea must be filled to the top of the jar, which reduces the likelihood of oxidisation, and the final sealing of the jar. This is done to maintain the premium taste and quality of the tea.
Black Tea
Storage: tinfoil or tin cans in airtight dry containers, purple sand jars, stored at room temperature (avoid high temperature)
The best time to drink: after opening in 3 years to drink the best, at room temperature, dry, light, sealed, no odour properly preserved can be a long time to drink!
Note: Dried black tea does not have much moisture content, so it is easy to get damp or emit flavour. In order to maintain its quality, we should try to avoid mixing different kinds of tea leaves during storage, and also keep away from light, high temperature and odourous items. Only in this way can we keep black tea for a longer period of time.
Puerh
Storage: room temperature storage, ventilated, dry, no foreign odour
Best drinking time: can be stored for a long time
Precautions:
1. If you are not careful because of excessive humidity, too long and make the tea due to moisture and mouldy white hairs, you should take it out in time and get it to a ventilated and dry place, you can also dehumidify it (just turn on the air-conditioner), or dry it under the sunlight, and the mouldy hairs that grow out after a few days will disappear naturally.
2. if the situation of white hair is serious, can be used to brush, towel and other soft textiles to remove the surface of the white hair, and then use the hairdryer and other heating appliances can be heated for ten minutes.
3. if it is black mould, green mould, grey mould is bad tea.
Flower tea
Storage: stored in a cool, dry, odourless environment
Best drinking time: within one year
Precautions: flower tea, this kind of green tea after reprocessing, easy to moisture deterioration. Therefore, we must pay attention to when storing flower tea, do a good job of moisture-proof measures.
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