Yet another storage thread..

[Rainy-Day]

What's more damaging to sencha: having some air in the canister or opening the canister often? In other words - when there's a bit of air locked in together with the tea, does it do most of the damage at first and then quickly tapers off or keeps doing about the same amount of damage as time passes?

What would be the perfect storage for sencha in terms of both preservation and convenience? I was thinking about a reusable dark plastic/foil bag (similar to the type used by specialteas, upton, etc) but about the size that can store ~30grams, stand upright and have two well-made ziplock seals on top. Is there such a beast sold anywhere? I think it'd be better than other common storage methods - tins have a lot of air locked in with the tea, 100g single use bags expose all 100g to air when opened, are bulky and it's hard to reach the tea on the bottom, ziplock seals sometimes break even before the bag is finished and probably leak a bit of air anyway.

Let's say you're Japanese, live in Japan, and drink a lot of good greens.. What would you use for storage?

If I take the bag that sencha is sold in, and roll down the top part until it reaches the bottom where the tea is, fixing it with a rubber band - does that make a good seal comparable to a ziplock, better than ziplock, or .. ?

If a 100g bag is finished within 7-10 days, does it make sense to store it in the refrigerator?

[Chip]

How one stores his tea is often a personal journey of discovery of its own. All we can do is share personal experience and you can decide your own course.

When I open a bag of sencha, 100 grams, I divide it into 2 of these sample tins which generally hold 50 grams perfectly.
https://secure.uptontea.com/shopcart/it ... egoryID=84
The one I use for daily use and will use til it is empty before ever opening the other one which I call "reserve." It seems I do believe that repeatedly opening a storage container of any kind will hasten the decline of the sencha.

The reserve, I live dangerously and place this sample tin in a double lid canister, and then back into the TeaFridge. I will usually use this reserve immediately after the daily use tin is used up, but I have also left reserves in the fridge for months with little or no noticable decline.

I do NOT recommend placing opened tea into the fridge, but I am willing to take the risk.

When it comes to Japanese teas, I am a bit of a freshness freak. I am not content to simply place the daily use tea in the sample tin, I also place the sample tin into a double lid canister. I want the tea in as small a container as possible in order to reduce exposure to air.

[Tea and coffee]

If you wanted to keep your tea air tight I also saw that Vacu vin the wine company they make some vacum sealing containers and they say they keep the freshness in ground coffee as you pump the air out of the container when you are done using it.

I think it could be good for storing a larger quantity of tea while you take out a small amount each week.

The air pump and container I think are around $30?
I only have the vacu vin meat marinator and it works the same way.
I know amazon sells most of those gadgets in the cookware section...

Right now the tea I am using is in some spice bottles-not used ones but bought some emply ones for .50 each a long time ago.

my too large bags of tea (company I bought from, sample size was 100 grams so have TONS of tea now.

[clareandromeda]

Chip do you use special storage containers?

[Zanaspus]

I think the most "damaging" storage is obsessing about storage after you have met decent criteria for good storage.

[Chip]

Chip do you use special storage containers?

I use double lidded Japanese Washi for the most part. The sample tin sits in it perfectly. I consider this better than decent criteria for good storage.

I think the most "damaging" storage is obsessing about storage after you have met decent criteria for good storage.

Not sure I quite get that one.

[Rainy-Day]

I'm experimenting now with what I think is a better method of storage for sencha and at the same time as convenient as a regular small tin. Here's what I use: a matcha tin with matcha foil bag that comes with it!! The foil sort of folds over the leaves when you close the lid, keeping most of the air in the tin from direct contact with the leaves.

When there's little tea left on the bottom, I put a spool of thread inside, it pushes down on the foil and keeps it closed, with the lid pushing down on the spool.

I've just started a bag of Miyabi so I don't know how well this will work as time goes by.

Oh, and the main bag is kept rolled up and then tightened with a rubber band, and I put it inside a ziplock bag.

I think this might be the best compromise of convenience and preservation, aside from possibly finding a small ~25g opaque ziplock bag with a very solid, good quality sealing..

By the way, I don't think I like Miyabi as much as the other senchas I had.. But the interesting thing about it is that sometimes there's a tiny note of flavour that is very similar to the best chinese greens.