Could have been a bad batch or how I=recharged them. Youzi if I can ask, what is your normal storage routine? I know we have many ideas and theories here in the West and I am interested in your techniques as to allow me to fine tune mine.
Storage Failure
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YeeOnTeaCo
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Our resident warehouse guru have recently written an article in regards to traditional HK storage from a commercial point of view, but he’s also included some history and some good pointers for storage of puerh tea at home.
Hope you guys can find some use with this information.
Article Here
Hope you guys can find some use with this information.
Article Here
Thank you for writing and sharing this. It's interesting reading.YeeOnTeaCo wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:27 pmOur resident warehouse guru have recently written an article in regards to traditional HK storage from a commercial point of view, but he’s also included some history and some good pointers for storage of puerh tea at home.
Hope you guys can find some use with this information.
Article Here
thanks for the article @YeeOnTeaCo
trying to avoid a storage failure here... but maybe I'm being overly paranoid. one good thing to keep in mind though whether it is a warehouse or just a part of your own house/apartment microclimates exist and can make a big difference as I have noticed with my storage arrangement over the last couple weeks.
I typically have lived in colder climates and usually in older buildings, which means drafty, more air exchange through window cracks, more heating drying out the air, so on... For the last couple years I was living in a very dry part of Germany that had been in drought for years so my fight was trying to maintain around 65% RH, usually hitting more like 62-64 even with lots of boveda packs. Now I moved just 2 hours away, but in to probably the newest apartment building I have ever lived in, which means new windows and more trapped humidity to the point of having to watch out for damp problems around the windows since its getting cool and rainy but not cold enough to turn on the radiators. I keep a couple big plastic bins of liu bao, a half depth one for shu, and a couple quarter size ones for liu an, other teas, and liu bao samples/current drinking. I've noticed that the smaller bins, which also don't tend to be packed as full seem to be hovering around 65-68% and 22-23c, same for the shu bin. However one liu bao bin, which is stored one shelf further up and isn't quite as tightly packed is also holding around 67-69% and 22-23c while the other, stored only one meter lower and slightly more loaded up seems to be sitting more around 21c and going up more to 71-73%. Maybe I don't need to be stressed about mold potential until higher RH? Its the cool temperature in combination that has me worried. I'll see how things stabilize once the heating is running regularly too, but its the type of thing where I could see a massive temperature swing could cause some issues for the more humid container. That extra tong or two crammed in somewhere and it being a one meter higher or lower in your closet/cabinet can make quite a difference.
trying to avoid a storage failure here... but maybe I'm being overly paranoid. one good thing to keep in mind though whether it is a warehouse or just a part of your own house/apartment microclimates exist and can make a big difference as I have noticed with my storage arrangement over the last couple weeks.
I typically have lived in colder climates and usually in older buildings, which means drafty, more air exchange through window cracks, more heating drying out the air, so on... For the last couple years I was living in a very dry part of Germany that had been in drought for years so my fight was trying to maintain around 65% RH, usually hitting more like 62-64 even with lots of boveda packs. Now I moved just 2 hours away, but in to probably the newest apartment building I have ever lived in, which means new windows and more trapped humidity to the point of having to watch out for damp problems around the windows since its getting cool and rainy but not cold enough to turn on the radiators. I keep a couple big plastic bins of liu bao, a half depth one for shu, and a couple quarter size ones for liu an, other teas, and liu bao samples/current drinking. I've noticed that the smaller bins, which also don't tend to be packed as full seem to be hovering around 65-68% and 22-23c, same for the shu bin. However one liu bao bin, which is stored one shelf further up and isn't quite as tightly packed is also holding around 67-69% and 22-23c while the other, stored only one meter lower and slightly more loaded up seems to be sitting more around 21c and going up more to 71-73%. Maybe I don't need to be stressed about mold potential until higher RH? Its the cool temperature in combination that has me worried. I'll see how things stabilize once the heating is running regularly too, but its the type of thing where I could see a massive temperature swing could cause some issues for the more humid container. That extra tong or two crammed in somewhere and it being a one meter higher or lower in your closet/cabinet can make quite a difference.
Not sure if it counts as a storage failure or a shipping failure, but I would recommend that if you are buying teas from someone and are including a traditionally-stored pu'er, order that one on its own, even if it involves separate shipping costs -- the classic packaging for this tea does nothing to contain its, uh, special allure, so the packaging of any tea shipped with it will smell like it, and if the other teas are packaged in anything short of sealed foil-lined packets, the tea will get a whiff of it too, especially if it has an open roll.
100% true.mbanu wrote: ↑Sun Nov 14, 2021 2:46 pmNot sure if it counts as a storage failure or a shipping failure, but I would recommend that if you are buying teas from someone and are including a traditionally-stored pu'er, order that one on its own, even if it involves separate shipping costs -- the classic packaging for this tea does nothing to contain its, uh, special allure, so the packaging of any tea shipped with it will smell like it, and if the other teas are packaged in anything short of sealed foil-lined packets, the tea will get a whiff of it too, especially if it has an open roll.
I don't think you are! I came here for the same reasons, ideas and efforts you are speaking to here because frankly, I have noticed that teas that I loved upon purchase, I sometimes wonder what I ever liked about them after I've stored them for some time. This result drives me to take greater care over the years after realizing this issue was one I did have some ability to mitigate.
I also live a dry climate but DO NOT see this as advantageous in my experience. In summer where I am, the ambient rH still only gets up to +/- 40% and in the winter is much lower. I first realized that loose leaf teas had lost most aroma and much flavor after a month or two if I just opened and closed the mylar bag daily with no environment controls. So I started buying cakes instead. These last a little longer with the innards being naturally sealed in, but eventually suffer the same fate.
My first true effort involved a converted camping cooler with a jar containing a water/salt solution to trap the humidity inside at 65%, then I upped it to 70% as opening/closing daily, I still found that the loss of aroma and taste was inevitable over a long enough period of time - BUT, it was an improvement. The aroma of tea pleasantly wafted from the cooler each time I go in for tea which at first was a sign I was on the right path at least.
Inside this humidor, I kept the cakes in their paper wraps only, worried they may develop mold if I kept them in plastic as well as the high humidity, but after a couple of years, given my natural environment, the teas all still gradually run lower on aroma and flavor, leading to the saddening realization that more still must be done.
I always look forward to how much aroma and flavor my fresh spring tea orders possess, which again rekindles my desire to overcome the challenge of trying to retain this experience for teas I used to love, but forget why after they degrade over time.
An interesting observation to this end is that the teas I received from Hojo, which come in vacuum sealed mylar bags (with what I assume to be a desiccant packet), is that they have the aroma to fill the room when I first open them, regardless of year of production. This leads me to believe that, at least for my goal of retaining optimal enjoyment, air-tight above all should be my goal. In my current process, this means leaving the cakes sealed in the mylar bag with the packet they arrived with and storing that in the humidor to account for inevitable exchange of air once the vacuum seal is broken. Yet even this I know will only delay the inevitable.
So, to wave_code - not paranoid. Just practical
. I see that there are vacuum seal kits for food storage and I am strongly inclined to consider such an option for my tea - has anyone looked into such an method?Cheers to you all!
I haven't tried vacuum sealing tea, but I store all loose tea and cakes individually in mylar pouches inside a temperature controlled cabinet.
Before sealing the mylar pouches for the first time I will store them with the tea inside in a box with humidity packs.
When I open these pouches the aroma is relatively equal to how they were when first delivered.
When I first started storing bulk tea in the cabinet I tried humidifying the entire cabinet and having the tea loose on shelves and I found that lost a lot of aroma for me.
Before sealing the mylar pouches for the first time I will store them with the tea inside in a box with humidity packs.
When I open these pouches the aroma is relatively equal to how they were when first delivered.
When I first started storing bulk tea in the cabinet I tried humidifying the entire cabinet and having the tea loose on shelves and I found that lost a lot of aroma for me.
hi @Kelly, I saw your post about Hojo here and your loss of aroma. I still have some issues, but I think a lot of them boil down to being climate seasonal changes that maybe even sometimes aren't drying the tea out while in humidity controlled storage but also just that the dry season everything goes a little dull because there isn't enough moisture in the air. Maybe there is aroma there in the box, but its not really carried in the air the way it would be if the ambient humidity inside and out were around 50% and everything winds up tasting flat.
I find with teas that have seen long term storage inside mylar for most of their shelf life like my factory liu bao teas they do mellow out in a big way within say 10 days of opening them. I think there will be a degree of this with almost any tea - if it has been concentrated in a mylar bag for 3 years and it gets opened and the amount of tea starts going down, there will be some changes. However the better teas I have, even if they changed a bit from initial opening, do tend to sort of stabilize after a few months. Not the same as day 1 opening after resting, but somewhere in between. Teas of lesser quality don't tend to bounce back as well. Seeing how a tea fares after 1, 2, 6 months or more after opening has become a bigger part of my criteria of how I judge a tea. I also feel like long-term small container stored teas like that don't stabilize as nicely as say, a bao lan tea that saw longer term storage in more ambient conditions in big straw baskets. And for bricks and cakes those that I do actually properly break up and 'wake up' in porcelain jars inside of my containers tend to be on the whole more tasty and aromatic than those which I just occasionally break chunks off of. If you haven't done this before it would be well worth trying with a cake or two. Also how much tea are you storing at once? I find the fuller I keep my bins the better off everything is.
Vacuum sealing seems odd to me in the way that yes you concentrate aroma within that bag - but as you are finding once it is open everything changes. So in that case is that really the normal condition of that tea then? It seems almost misleading in a way or like fooling one's self, because yes of course that tea will only taste that way when it has been vacuum sealed in plastic- you aren't ever going to re-vacuum seal it and wait three years before having another chunk. What you probably really want then is a tea that tastes that way when stored in porcelain jar or a tin, not un-opened for years. Or at least a tea that gives you those properties while drinking it.
I find with teas that have seen long term storage inside mylar for most of their shelf life like my factory liu bao teas they do mellow out in a big way within say 10 days of opening them. I think there will be a degree of this with almost any tea - if it has been concentrated in a mylar bag for 3 years and it gets opened and the amount of tea starts going down, there will be some changes. However the better teas I have, even if they changed a bit from initial opening, do tend to sort of stabilize after a few months. Not the same as day 1 opening after resting, but somewhere in between. Teas of lesser quality don't tend to bounce back as well. Seeing how a tea fares after 1, 2, 6 months or more after opening has become a bigger part of my criteria of how I judge a tea. I also feel like long-term small container stored teas like that don't stabilize as nicely as say, a bao lan tea that saw longer term storage in more ambient conditions in big straw baskets. And for bricks and cakes those that I do actually properly break up and 'wake up' in porcelain jars inside of my containers tend to be on the whole more tasty and aromatic than those which I just occasionally break chunks off of. If you haven't done this before it would be well worth trying with a cake or two. Also how much tea are you storing at once? I find the fuller I keep my bins the better off everything is.
Vacuum sealing seems odd to me in the way that yes you concentrate aroma within that bag - but as you are finding once it is open everything changes. So in that case is that really the normal condition of that tea then? It seems almost misleading in a way or like fooling one's self, because yes of course that tea will only taste that way when it has been vacuum sealed in plastic- you aren't ever going to re-vacuum seal it and wait three years before having another chunk. What you probably really want then is a tea that tastes that way when stored in porcelain jar or a tin, not un-opened for years. Or at least a tea that gives you those properties while drinking it.
Thanks for sharing that. It seems with experience, we're arriving at similar conclusions with the sealed mylar and humidity retention. This greatly reduces, but doesn't entirely prevent the degradation in my experience thus far. My take is that the tea is shedding it's native moisture and aroma (biome) into whatever air it is sealed into each time that air is exchanged (ie, opened for use and resealed), thus, even sealing it tightly with mylar each time in the proper humidity still has the tea exchanging (and degrading) with foreign air and water inside the mylar bag. I hypothesize removing the air would inhibit that process from occurring while the tea was resting in between uses, leading to best retention of it's original biome, I reckon. The evidence of the pure aroma that came from a freshly unsealed bag of even 2016 Bai Ying white tea from Hojo's vacuum sealed process convinced me vacuum re-sealing was worth a try at least.
The issue is how to do that between each use. I know there are 'food keeper' tools that allow for cost effective vacuum sealing, ideally something that has a reusable bag that just seals it between uses or worst case, breaking a cake up and vacuum sealing half for example until getting around to consuming it and sticking with mylar in between.
Here is another perspective. Tea should be allowed to reach equilibrium with user's environment- albeit in a sealed bag or container. If a tea degrades drastically to something flat- then...the tea is inferior. Not your fault. Not the environments fault.
A good tea changes but does not go flat. It becomes different and perhaps even better as it balances with whatever storage it encounters. That has been my experience. The finicky stuff that dies in a few weeks tend to be inferior material that is just full of air.
A good tea changes but does not go flat. It becomes different and perhaps even better as it balances with whatever storage it encounters. That has been my experience. The finicky stuff that dies in a few weeks tend to be inferior material that is just full of air.
Thanks for sharing this. I relate with your findings on lost impact of teas after a short time being unsealed, and also how better quality teas have perhaps more to lose and thus last longer. Regarding density, my homemade humidor is nearly full with raw Puerhs. I recently increased the size of my water jar as the volume of cakes was absorbing at too high a rate to maintain the rH, but I've stabilized it again now and assembled a second for my white teas. I still find that the although opening the lid releases a reassuring tea scent, the individual cakes still slowly become muted. That said, I look forward to seeing the result of moving to keep cakes sealed in mylar bags within the humidor. I'm sure this must all sound like madness to people living in humid climates...wave_code wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:41 amhi Kelly, I saw your post about Hojo here and your loss of aroma. I still have some issues, but I think a lot of them boil down to being climate seasonal changes that maybe even sometimes aren't drying the tea out while in humidity controlled storage but also just that the dry season everything goes a little dull because there isn't enough moisture in the air. Maybe there is aroma there in the box, but its not really carried in the air the way it would be if the ambient humidity inside and out were around 50% and everything winds up tasting flat.
I find with teas that have seen long term storage inside mylar for most of their shelf life like my factory liu bao teas they do mellow out in a big way within say 10 days of opening them. I think there will be a degree of this with almost any tea - if it has been concentrated in a mylar bag for 3 years and it gets opened and the amount of tea starts going down, there will be some changes. However the better teas I have, even if they changed a bit from initial opening, do tend to sort of stabilize after a few months. Not the same as day 1 opening after resting, but somewhere in between. Teas of lesser quality don't tend to bounce back as well. Seeing how a tea fares after 1, 2, 6 months or more after opening has become a bigger part of my criteria of how I judge a tea. I also feel like long-term small container stored teas like that don't stabilize as nicely as say, a bao lan tea that saw longer term storage in more ambient conditions in big straw baskets. And for bricks and cakes those that I do actually properly break up and 'wake up' in porcelain jars inside of my containers tend to be on the whole more tasty and aromatic than those which I just occasionally break chunks off of. If you haven't done this before it would be well worth trying with a cake or two. Also how much tea are you storing at once? I find the fuller I keep my bins the better off everything is.
Vacuum sealing seems odd to me in the way that yes you concentrate aroma within that bag - but as you are finding once it is open everything changes. So in that case is that really the normal condition of that tea then? It seems almost misleading in a way or like fooling one's self, because yes of course that tea will only taste that way when it has been vacuum sealed in plastic- you aren't ever going to re-vacuum seal it and wait three years before having another chunk. What you probably really want then is a tea that tastes that way when stored in porcelain jar or a tin, not un-opened for years. Or at least a tea that gives you those properties while drinking it.
I haven't tried breaking up the cakes, I am very leery that it will expose more of the virgin tea to the elements, lol. Maybe I'll get brave and try it. So far, having rebought the same cakes several times in some instances, I achieve maximum pleasure upon first unsealing a vacuum packed cake. I've also tried the same tea after a couple of weeks unsealed an a newly unsealed and it's notable. The aroma fills the room and really informs my taste buds, which diminishes. I'd be curious to learn if any other manufacturers besides Hojo preserve their teas this way? I'd be very keen to try if so and I'd recommend if you've not tried a tea packed this way, to try one to observe the result.
My theory of the vacuum seal is informed by the quality of the result of the tea I've bought packaged this way. There are home, re-sealable vac units out there, though I haven't taken the plunge yet. Next rainy day I'll look into it. You're right in that once you open the first vacuum seal, you've let in the new environment and let out the native one, but I think if you remove the air again, it would stop the tea from having to equalize rH, oxygen and whatever else leaves the tea with the new air each time the new air is sealed into the mylar bag. Ideally, vac should just allow the tea to sit in stasis until it was un sealed again, I would think. As you also note, it may be unwieldly, depending on the solutions out there.
Even if it proved to be impractical to re-seal on the daily, I think breaking a cake up and resealing a pragmatic amount would at least keep the whole cake from slowly fading while consuming a fraction of it. I'm pretty such I'll give this a shot wither way - the volume of tea that I have that not longer measures up makes me sad, lol.
Kelly wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 6:35 pmThanks for sharing this. I relate with your findings on lost impact of teas after a short time being unsealed, and also how better quality teas have perhaps more to lose and thus last longer. Regarding density, my homemade humidor is nearly full with raw Puerhs. I recently increased the size of my water jar as the volume of cakes was absorbing at too high a rate to maintain the rH, but I've stabilized it again now and assembled a second for my white teas. I still find opening the lid releases a reassuring tea scent, yet the individual cakes still slowly become muted. That said, I look forward to seeing the result of moving to keep cakes sealed in mylar bags within the humidor. I'm sure this must all sound like madness to people living in humid climates...wave_code wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:41 amhi Kelly, I saw your post about Hojo here and your loss of aroma. I still have some issues, but I think a lot of them boil down to being climate seasonal changes that maybe even sometimes aren't drying the tea out while in humidity controlled storage but also just that the dry season everything goes a little dull because there isn't enough moisture in the air. Maybe there is aroma there in the box, but its not really carried in the air the way it would be if the ambient humidity inside and out were around 50% and everything winds up tasting flat.
I find with teas that have seen long term storage inside mylar for most of their shelf life like my factory liu bao teas they do mellow out in a big way within say 10 days of opening them. I think there will be a degree of this with almost any tea - if it has been concentrated in a mylar bag for 3 years and it gets opened and the amount of tea starts going down, there will be some changes. However the better teas I have, even if they changed a bit from initial opening, do tend to sort of stabilize after a few months. Not the same as day 1 opening after resting, but somewhere in between. Teas of lesser quality don't tend to bounce back as well. Seeing how a tea fares after 1, 2, 6 months or more after opening has become a bigger part of my criteria of how I judge a tea. I also feel like long-term small container stored teas like that don't stabilize as nicely as say, a bao lan tea that saw longer term storage in more ambient conditions in big straw baskets. And for bricks and cakes those that I do actually properly break up and 'wake up' in porcelain jars inside of my containers tend to be on the whole more tasty and aromatic than those which I just occasionally break chunks off of. If you haven't done this before it would be well worth trying with a cake or two. Also how much tea are you storing at once? I find the fuller I keep my bins the better off everything is.
Vacuum sealing seems odd to me in the way that yes you concentrate aroma within that bag - but as you are finding once it is open everything changes. So in that case is that really the normal condition of that tea then? It seems almost misleading in a way or like fooling one's self, because yes of course that tea will only taste that way when it has been vacuum sealed in plastic- you aren't ever going to re-vacuum seal it and wait three years before having another chunk. What you probably really want then is a tea that tastes that way when stored in porcelain jar or a tin, not un-opened for years. Or at least a tea that gives you those properties while drinking it.
I haven't tried breaking up the cakes, I am very leery that it will expose more of the virgin tea to the elements, lol. Maybe I'll get brave and try it. So far, having rebought the same cakes several times in some instances, I achieve maximum pleasure upon first unsealing a vacuum packed cake. I've also tried the same tea after a couple of weeks unsealed an a newly unsealed and it's notable. The aroma fills the room and really informs my taste buds, which diminishes. I'd be curious to learn if any other manufacturers besides Hojo preserve their teas this way? I'd be very keen to try if so and I'd recommend if you've not tried a tea packed this way, to try one to observe the result.
My theory of the vacuum seal is informed by the quality of the result of the tea I've bought packaged this way. There are home, re-sealable vac units out there, though I haven't taken the plunge yet. Next rainy day I'll look into it. You're right in that once you open the first vacuum seal, you've let in the new environment and let out the native one, but I think if you remove the air again, it would stop the tea from having to equalize rH, oxygen and whatever else leaves the tea with the new air each time the new air is sealed into the mylar bag. Ideally, vac should just allow the tea to sit in stasis until it was un sealed again, I would think. As you also note, it may be unwieldly, depending on the solutions out there.
Even if it proved to be impractical to re-seal on the daily, I think breaking a cake up and resealing a pragmatic amount would at least keep the whole cake from slowly fading while consuming a fraction of it. I'm pretty such I'll give this a shot wither way - the volume of tea that I have that not longer measures up makes me sad, lol.
What kind of puerh are you talking about? If it is new green stuff, it will naturally change a lot during the first couple of years, loosing the freshness.Kelly wrote: ↑Sat Jun 17, 2023 2:12 pmInside this humidor, I kept the cakes in their paper wraps only, worried they may develop mold if I kept them in plastic as well as the high humidity, but after a couple of years, given my natural environment, the teas all still gradually run lower on aroma and flavor, leading to the saddening realization that more still must be done.
As far as mold development, it usually happens at areas where the humidity concentrates: near the source of humidity, in corners, etc. or where the moisture condensates. Having the cakes wrapped in some kind of semi-permeable plastic foil can help both to maintain the aroma better as well as isolate the cakes somewhat from the higher humidity spots, and potentially also to slow the mold spread if things go bad.
If you go for the vacuum storage, it could be interesting to keep an identical piece sealed in a mylar bag with some air and see the difference after a few years.
I realize the topic is veering toward how to NOT have storage failure - and I appreciate the tip, thank-you..m. wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:50 pmWhat kind of puerh are you talking about? If it is new green stuff, it will naturally change a lot during the first couple of years, loosing the freshness.
As far as mold development, it usually happens at areas where the humidity concentrates: near the source of humidity, in corners, etc. or where the moisture condensates. Having the cakes wrapped in some kind of semi-permeable plastic foil can help both to maintain the aroma better as well as isolate the cakes somewhat from the higher humidity spots, and potentially also to slow the mold spread if things go bad.
If you go for the vacuum storage, it could be interesting to keep an identical piece sealed in a mylar bag with some air and see the difference after a few years.
In my set-up, I haven't noted any condensation so far. I think the temperature is stable enough and the tea, paper wrappers and regular use combine to limit conditions for it's occurrence. I guess I also have my dry climate and imperfect sealing to thank for the lack of mold. Great idea about keeping some tea within and without the vac-seal over a long period. I will absolutely try that. I would take some in a control group in mylar inside the humidor, in just the paper inside the humidor and vac-sealed I think to evaluate each method over time.
Re: Puerh, yes, I do tend toward the younger sheng as a preference. I also have a fondness for stronger, less oxidized white teas that blur the line between white tea and sheng so I could be influenced by natural (likely rapid at first) aging. I do come back to the example of unsealing a vac-sealed bag of 2016 Bai Ying white tea recently where it was totally vibrant and then predictably diminishing within a few weeks though. Probably both factors - aging and air at work, with air being the crueler.