"waking" non-compressed teas

Puerh and other heicha
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Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:42 am

After I started breaking up my cakes and giving them about a month to wake up like I should I noticed a marked improvement in those teas, so I tend to do this now with one larger brick or cake at a time for a particular style for daily drinking. Some teas that I drink infrequently and I find often times once I'm looking to drink some again a new outer layer of the tuo comes off easily enough that I haven't really bothered to break it up. But, I haven't tried this much yet with uncompressed or lightly compressed teas like small liu bao baskets or liu an on my own - but I have noticed difference enough between samples in zip packs and then after buying a full basket to make me think maybe I should be doing this for those teas as well. Curious if anyone else here finds it necessary or tends to break these up prior to regular drinking, or if not the whole thing taking a substantial amount out and giving it some breathing time in a separate jar or package.
Andrew S
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Tue Jun 29, 2021 6:55 am

My usual practice is to place aged teas for daily drinking in large earthenware jars, regardless of whether they're loose teas, cakes, baskets or other types.

I find that the improvement comes both from breaking them up (if they're compressed) and from storing them in jars (more generally), and that the improvement tends to be the greatest for teas that have been stored humidly, or that have retained some undesirable elements such as smokiness or other harshness. But there's definitely an improvement for loose leaf teas just as with compressed tea.

Older and higher-quality teas seem to do best in small porcelain jars, both so that they don't lose too much of their more fragile essence, and so that I avoid breaking too much of them up if I'm likely to take a long time to drink them. The issue with them isn't getting rid of bad characters, but just giving them a chance to open up a little bit to be at their best when you have them.

Old tea straight from the bag or straight from the cake never seems to taste as nice as after a bit of storage in a jar.

At least with old tea, I don't think you need to worry too much about it going 'off', unless there's something particular about the climate that you live in that might do that.

Andrew
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Thu Jul 01, 2021 3:21 am

While breaking up cakes for me has made an obvious difference, I've also been storing them maybe a little differently. One 400g brick I broke up and keep in a thick paper bag, but still in the storage bin with a lot of other liu bao and some humidity packs - it seems to do well enough there I left it be. Though after about a month it had much better flavor and aroma, after 2 months it started to decrease again, maybe should have moved it to its own jar after one month. One smaller 100g cake I checked in on the other day after a month in a small glass jar also with a humidity pack and shielded from daylight- no real noticeable improvement there - not sure if its that it was stored dry and needs a long time to wake up or if there isn't enough airflow in the jar, but its also not super fancy material so maybe there just isn't much nuance to bring out. I also broke up another 400g brick in preparation for the one I have been drinking to run out - a month in a brown zip pack seems to have done barely anything to wake up or loosen the tea with the exception of a couple chunks on the top - since it all barely fits in there the amount of space and air is obviously pretty key so I'll move it to paper or a much larger container next.

Some teas though I have noticed were better out of larger sample zip packs than when I take them directly out of the 500g or 1k basket. But maybe there is something to them being stored looser in there- that if the tea isn't compressed going from looser storage to then having a period in a tighter closed container helps to concentrate some of the character.

Perhaps this warrants a bit more proper experimentation. I think I'll try picking up an inexpensive liu an basket when I can and try 50% broken up in a porcelain jar and 50% left in the basket, see what happens over a couple of months.
tolean
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 3:03 pm

I never tried this method with a whole brick but i noticed that some of my shou stared to ,,dry off,, or ,,die,, when i simply keep them in their bags. One day i started to open them and spray with a small amount of water. One month later my teas rebecame how i knew them. Maybe even better. I simply try not to make them too wet to avoid the mold. 3 months it works well. But it's not a very big period and i need more time and teas to make sure it's a good method.
Nice post btw, thx!
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Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:56 am

if you are somewhere that its dry enough that your teas are going stale inside their bags regularly just while storing them you might want to consider getting some boveda/moisture packs - they'll hold the humidity quite steady and you won't need to worry about mold. spraying water into the bag sounds risky and bad for your tea in the long haul.
tolean
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Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:40 pm

Thx i will try to see where I can find some of this bags in my region!
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