Saving steepings

[beforewisdom]

Hi all,

Some days I just can't handle more than one cup of green tea. I would like to save some once or twice steeped tea leaves for the next day. Is it better to do this at room temperature or put the leaves in the refrigerator?

[Poseidon]

I think there was a thread in the Puerh area that talked about this. If I remember correctly, Cover the tea vessle with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. Heat/room temp is a breeding ground for mold!

[Pig Hog]

Personally, I wouldn't do either.

I find that leaving used leaves for an hour or two causes a loss of flavour, let alone over night and longer.

My philosophy is to only drink it if I'm enjoying it. So if I've only made one or two infusions, fine. I won't make more for the sake of it if I don't want more tea, nor will I save the leaves because I know that they won't taste as good a few hours later.

I'd much rather start again and enjoy it instead of going back to old leaves.

I do this regardless of the price of the tea. If it was cheap then great! If it was expensive...well I'd rather enjoy a few great brews than keep drinking the old leaves.

I think that makes sense...

[.m.]

this is quite a controversial issue that has been been discussed here several times. personally, i often continue a session with a good puerh or oolong another day, or steep it overnight. i've never had any issue with leaving the leaves in a closed ceramic teapot overnight on the table (never more than 24 hrs!!!). this of course depends on your location (i'm in canada) - on the other hand, most people in southeast asia, where the climate is more warm and humid and mold develops faster, would probably strongly advise against it (see http://teaism99.com/2014/02/06/the-one/). anyways, with green tea it might not be worth.

[Devoted135]

I've continued sessions of oolong from one day to the next, but the few times that I've had to leave a sencha session for even just a couple hours I found that the tea had significantly degraded when I came back to it. It was very disappointing, so now I try to just make sure that I have enough time for the number of steeps that I want to do that day.

[debunix]

I've not had good luck with holding green tea for more than an hour or two after starting to infuse the leaves....sometimes a session gets interrupted, and I come back to the leaves later, and feel sad about throwing them out, and try another infusion or two, and it's always at least a little disappointing if not awful.

I am quite cavalier about reusing oolongs and puerh, starting sessions knowing I won't be able to finish at one time, and have kept leaves room temperature for a day between infusions, but I never plan to reuse green leaves.

[Se7en8ight]

Hello All,

I know how you feel BW, I hate to waste leaves and being that I live in a tea desert (coffee-centric country) every gram counts. Also I'm pretty much the only tea drinker at home so I usually brew for one.

I have a 300ml tumbler and what i'll do is i'll strip-style brew 3-4x in a smaller vessel this way I get the most out of my tea leaves. Then into the compost which makes for really happy plants. Nothing is wasted

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[beforewisdom]

How did Filipinos come to be coffee drinkers?

A new Japanese friend of mine gave me a tip for getting even more use out of green tea. Once she has gotten all of the steepings out of it she is going to get, she puts the spent leaves in a bottle of water in her refrigerator over night.

She uses the resulting water for a workout drink the next day.

[Se7en8ight]

Hi BW,

Long history of european colonization and american occupation. We even have our own kind of coffee which is quite yummy. The Philippines was a port for the Galleon Trade so lots of new world stuff ended up here. Coffee is one of those things that stuck. The spanish influence is so strong in our culture.

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