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I saw a question in another thread about separating hei cha or not in storage, and thought since there is much more out there than just sheng and it can want pretty different storage it might warrant its own thread...

I'm trying to start sorting out a storage set up for mainly liu bao and shu... most of what I buy is still in zip packs but for larger quantities or long-term storage I'm looking for better solutions, also for cakes/bricks that are just in paper or small baskets. I plan to keep the two separated. My understanding is that liu bao prefers the dark (I guess all tea does) and cooler storage than sheng. Is shu in the same boat? For loose-leaf I'd prefer to get them in to some sort of ceramic jar, but I'm wondering if glass might also be an alright option if it is then stored in a light proof box anyway. I also have other teas I don't have in much quantity stored together in a box right now- liu an, tianjian, some other random hei cha bricks. I'm guessing I should probably get them into zip packs.

Being in Germany it will be tough to keep things cool in the summer, but hopefully the back shelf near the ground in the kitchen should be a little more stable temp wise than the living room. The water table here is too high to risk any kind of basement storage.

It probably depends whether you just want to store the tea or to age it. My impression is that with both liu bao and liu an, warmth and certain amount of humidity is more conductive to aging. Lot of the liu baos ive tried had a bit of musty character to it for some reason (wet storage), and i'm thinking that the way to clean that out is to let it to "ferment out" (this speculation is based on tasting some teas that clearly went through very humid storage yet somehow ended up very clean tasting, and also storage the experiments of Marco https://mgualt.com/tealog/2019/10/12/20 ... e-outcome/).

I have a few teas I'd like to try to age and get them to develop a bit more if I can since they taste a bit young/green, though I am alright with them taking their slow time, I don't feel the need to try and create some kind of HK storage simulation to push them along. But for the most part I just want to ensure things that I have in larger quantity don't loose anything or are stored as best I can since it is going to take a long time to get through say 1kg of a single tea. If I'm gonna slowly work through something over several years or more I want to maintain its quality. with some stuff being compressed in bricks you get a bit more insulation/protection like you do with pu, but loose leaves or small baskets I imagine might be a bit more prone to the environment.

Having a river nearby and it seeming to be a rainy region in the fall (have yet to see how dry or humid it is here in summer) I guess at least it isn't as dry where I am for the moment compared to where I lived before.