TeaChat

This tea has been sitting in a sealed package for about a year. It's from the 80's, from a trusted source. I will probably just brew it up anyways, but this is the first time I've actually seen this on one of my teas. Thoughts?

Change your storage conditions.

Can you elaborate on the storage conditions you were using when this happened?

I had 10 grams of the tea in a sealed plastic wrapper (sealed, but not vacuum sealed). This wrapper was stored in a tin can. The tin can was sitting on my shelf for a year. The conditions in my apartment are very, very dry. I was not trying to age the tea more, I was just waiting for the right moment to drink it.

I'd air that sucker out for a while ... a long while

teaskeptic wrote:I had 10 grams of the tea in a sealed plastic wrapper (sealed, but not vacuum sealed). This wrapper was stored in a tin can. The tin can was sitting on my shelf for a year. The conditions in my apartment are very, very dry. I was not trying to age the tea more, I was just waiting for the right moment to drink it.

Maybe I am wrong, but I think that when you received this sample, was in rather wet conditions, and the absence of air exchange caused all this.

I certainly wouldn't drink it! Please, dear expercts, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd say that white, furry mold is certainly bad mold.

miig wrote:I certainly wouldn't drink it! Please, dear expercts, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd say that white, furry mold is certainly bad mold.

+1 on the white furry mold statement!

Brush it off, drink it, if it's nasty, toss it.

It's a tiny bit of fuzzy mold, not BTX or Plutonium.

if one's game to try, i might just clean off the mold and bake it before brewing

bad mold..IMO.

chrl42 wrote:bad mold..IMO.

+1

Looks good...for the compost heap.

Boiling water should kill of any organisms, but you might see colors and have bad trip. who knows

Well, have buyed a traditional stored 2001 Commissioned CNNP 8582 (Hong-Kong, Taiwan) sample. After cca 20 days - the "white frost" (mycelium) appears. I drunk cca 30 ml - the effect: drunkenness. The first tasting was without "frost" and without drunkenness. Well, psychotropic effects of some fungi are well known. The question is - are there any "bad" mokotoxins...?