Tea Humidor

[Salsero]

So Salsero you seem to describe your humidor as being made out of wood with trays of water inside, is this correct? I may need to come up with something different beacuase i have not achieved any difference in humidity overnight.

Yes, deep trays with water so it doesn't slop out and accidentally make tea!

Overnight is not long enough. Remember: those dry tea cakes will suck all the water out of the air for a least a few days so your hygrometer will show a low humidity. The moisture is there, it's just going into the cakes, which desperately need it. After the cakes get re-hydrated a bit, an equilibrium will be established in your humidor, the air will retain more water, and your hygrometer reading will go up. So give it at least a week.

Check out Wesli's graph in the link above. It took a while for the hygrometer readings to get up for him (which he documents) and I also had the same start up experience. Patience , Grasshopper, the way of tea is slow!

[shogun89]

Currently no tea is in the humidor, still kinda smells like plastic, so I am experimenting to see how much water I need. The mold issue on the cakes is really starting to worry me.

[Salsero]

Currently no tea is in the humidor, still kinda smells like plastic, so I am experimenting to see how much water I need. The mold issue on the cakes is really starting to worry me.

No tea and the humidity is not going up? That seems weird. You have your wet container inside, I imagine. Seems you should be getting at least 70% over night, maybe more.

[shogun89]

Yes the "wet container" is inside with holes in the lid of it, the only guess i have is that the main container is a sterilite brand so the lid is not sealed but just a snap on, although I thought it would be good enough to hold in humidity. my room is 51% and the container is 58% so it has gone up a little since I last posted. I'll keep you informed.

[Salsero]

I'll keep you informed.

Pls do. As you may have noticed, I am interested in the topic!

[shogun89]

60%

[shogun89]

63%

[shogun89]

65%

[Salsero]

65%

I have to admire your thoroughness! At least we are going in the right direction.

[shogun89]

I hate to say this but there is no difference between the outside air and inside the box.
The humidity inside my room increased throughout the day thus increasing it inside the humidor, I finaly relized this when i took out the reader and measured the air outside.
I am now constructing a wooden humidor very much like a cigar humidor and will post progress along the way on a new topic in this section.

[Ti]

This is the tea that led me to the idea of a humidor. I guess all the reading I've been doing as of late had something to do with it.

2006 Nan Jian Tea Factory Zhai Zi Po "Yun Zhi" Raw Pu-erh



I'm still reeling from this tea. I made a pot and my first reaction was that it had the bitter flavor of liquid prednisone. I was like...yikes! This sucks! By the end of the pot it had been diluted enough or I started to get used to the brashness of it and it wasn't as bad. I noticed a mild stevia-like sweetness to it that seemed to coat my tongue and linger for about 15 minutes. I came to the conclusion that maybe it's not really all that bad but might benefit from storage in a good environment. Or maybe just time. I don't know.

[heavydoom]

great thread. here is my thing though. here in canada, some of us need to buy this thing that takes the moisture out of basements. a dehumidifier. in some basements, it takes out like a bucket of water overnight.

so, is it a bad thing then to store my pu in the basement? i think that this dampness is different that the moisture in the air when it is humid, right?

[Ti]

great thread. here is my thing though. here in canada, some of us need to buy this thing that takes the moisture out of basements. a dehumidifier. in some basements, it takes out like a bucket of water overnight.

so, is it a bad thing then to store my pu in the basement? i think that this dampness is different that the moisture in the air when it is humid, right?

Dampness in the air is humidity. I empty my basement dehumidifier three times a day and can't keep up with the condensation problem, and I bought the biggest dehumidifier available without going into an industrial machine.

I have my doubts storing pu in that kind of environment is a good idea, but my experience with the ridiculously humid basement would be to say no. The excessive humidity in the basement, in my case anyway, has the basement full of molds which I have to fight-off in spite of my constant effort with the dehumidifier to reduce/eliminate it. I think that storing pu in such an excessively humid environment would invite trouble. Mold on the tea would ruin it.

[Salsero]

Basements seem like they would have potential. Unfortunately, here in Florida, we don't have them. I think of some basements (probably the more humid ones) as having an odor and odor is an enemy of puerh unless you want your pu to smell like that odor. I suspect a hygrometer could tell you if the humidity is excessive (I think 80% would me my max) and your nose could tell you if there is an odor you want to avoid.

Off hand, I would say that Ti's basement is probably toxic for pu, but HeavyDoom's could be perfect. In Canada you are probably running heat all winter and drying the basement out quite a bit and in the summer ... well, do you have summers up there?

[heavydoom]

the thing is that when i go to the basement, it's nice and cool, i don't feel any dampness in my basement. i mean it is underground.

right now, it's humid in toronto. it will be till the end of august. so we get three months of humid weather, then the cold sets in. we crank up the heat in the winter time but then again, sometimes in the winter, the weather people say that the humidity is such and such percent, and this number can be sometimes up in 80's.



what about storing the pu in the attic? heat rises, the pu gets nice and hot and humid too? does humidity rise? i think it does. i was thinking of just putting my box of pu up in the attic and let it do its thing. the pu would be in a carton box with holes punched throught its walls so that the pu can breathe.