The Quest For Tea Storage

[TaiPing Hou Kui]

In the never ending quest to find the best way to store tea it is a constant battle to either drink tea fast or suffer a loss in quality due to its repeated exposure to oxygen and light, etc. when the container is opened. Anyway, while grocery shopping today I came across this small vacuum bag sealer made by Reynolds. It comes with re-usable bags with an air-lock valve that lets the air get sucked out and doesent let any air in. It was only $3.95 so I figured I would get it and test it out....even if it doesent work it was only a few bucks.......I figured it would be good for storing some of my low-med grade senchas that I use for making ice brews or home made genmai-chas. It seems to work relatively well and I am going to test it out over the course of a few weeks and see if I can tell the difference between one bag that I keep sealed just with the seal that is inside the bag and the other sealed inside its original bag + being sealed inside the airtight zip-lock bag.....after each use all the oxygen can be sucked out and hopefully prevent leaf degradation. Here are some pictures of the apparatus along with some sencha I picked up from a local asian mart sealed inside:

Device By Itself:


Device with Ziplock Bag and Sencha:


Bag Sealed...with TeaCat lending a paw:


Bag Sealed: Side Angle:


Bag Sealed: Side Angle:


-Nick

[chamekke]

Hmm. You say that the bag is sealed, yet in the last picture the cat is clearly escaping from it

[Victoria]

Yeah I have been using this for sealed bags that I have opened. I loosely close the original bag, so that air can be drawn out for inside that bag also, yet the tea is only touching the original packaging. Seems to work great.

[Herb_Master]

Yeah I have been using this for sealed bags that I have opened. I loosely close the original bag, so that air can be drawn out for inside that bag also, yet the tea is only touching the original packaging. Seems to work great.

Having done that, can you put the bag(s) back into the fridge? (referring to a post where only unopened bags were stored in a refrigerator)

[silverneedles]

ziploc bag + straw + mouth = remove air from ziploc
(but i only use sometimes for foods, and the regular ziplocs i have eventually refill, havent used with tea)

but 4$ is nice

[TaiPing Hou Kui]

Silverneedles---I have thought about using a straw and doing that method (I have used this for foods and works well)...I would only be worried doing this for tea....that some particle of mositure from my mouth would enter the bag and then mositure would be trapped inside. This would be bad for the precious tea.

-Nick

[MarshalN]

Regular ziplocs leak a bit of air.... try putting some aromatic leaves in a bag, let stand for a week... you might smell the tea through the bag.

[silverneedles]

i used to put teas in ziplocs, but after a couple days i would notice a strange "sweet" smell in the area/around the bags - maybe just some components of the aromas diffuse thru the plastic?
In any case, i dont use ziplocs to store naked tea leaf anymore.

[TaiPing Hou Kui]

Im not using naked leaf in the bags either....I have the naked leaf in its original bag and then put the whole thing inside the reynolds bag.

-Nick

[shogun89]

I have one of those too. We use it for meats and stuff for the freezer. It truly works great. Haven't used it on tea yet.

[bi lew chun]

Regular ziplocs leak a bit of air.... try putting some aromatic leaves in a bag, let stand for a week... you might smell the tea through the bag.

I also tend to smell bag in the tea.