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so i opened my lunch bag from march. suddenly remembered that i brought a few things home with tea-wise and one of them was a 100g tou that i had just opened. very dry. the shou breaks apart easily and tastes fine when steeped. wondering if i should make an effort to hydrate it or just consume the tea the way it is.

Well, if it tastes fine then there's not much reason to worry, right? Also, did it not use to break apart easily? It sounds odd that it would have undergone a big transformation in just a couple of months.

Tea stored poorly usually does better with a little time in better storage - although if you like how it brews now then it might not be an issue!

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:47 pm

Well, if it tastes fine then there's not much reason to worry, right? Also, did it not use to break apart easily? It sounds odd that it would have undergone a big transformation in just a couple of months.

yeah the wrapper wsan't fully around the tou so maybe that helped the drying out process? this is likely the driest tou/brick/cake that I've broken up.

Ah, so it was a tea you hadn't tried before? Any idea about its storage condition before you acquired it? Offices do tend to be dry due to air-conditioning. In any case, as long as you enjoy the tea I wouldn't worry about the tuo feeling dry. But as Stephen mentioned, storing it in better conditons for a while might help "wake it up" again.

nah I did a bad job explaining. the tea has been sitting in the lunch bag in the kitchen since march. I had broken it open at work a couple times and when opened the lunch bag the wrapper wasn't 100% around the tou. I've had one of these tous before and dried out it's as good as I remember it but like I said I haven't had it since March. I just broke up some old bear fangcha and comparing that with this tou, the dried out tou pretty much crumbled when i stuck a knife into it, where as the fangcha was a pita to break up.