Storing tea leaves between steepings? Help please!

[Eastcott&Burgess Tea]

Hi guys, I am a huge fan of Don Mei here in London and his youtube channel and all of his suggestions. But, I’ve been trying his method of storing tea leaves in a dry clean towel between steepings, and whilst this may work for storing leaves for 12 hours or less, it goes horribly wrong if you want to store them for any longer, like a week in my case: XXXX

My beautiful Yunnan golden buds went from a malty milky chocolate flavour (XXXX) to mouldy potatoes! I know I say in the video that it must have become contaminated with food odours, but that’s not it, as I actually stored it in my room, which smells like roses of course! In any case, I have no food in my room.

Does anyone have experience with this? Is it possible to store tea leaves for a week and to maintain the flavour? What method works? It’s such a shame if this isn’t possible. Yulia X

[Zared]

Not sure how your brewing your tea but it sounds like your either using too much leaf or your pot is way too big.

I try to focus on brewing only what I can drink in a day or two. If I know I can't have a lot more caffine but still want something strong I just use a smaller pot. When I don't have time to brew something 15x or more I'll just brew fewer steeps in a slightly larger pot for longer. Both achieve similar results.

[ethan]

April Fools Day is the first day of April in the USA. In the United Kingdom is it the ninth day?

[Eastcott&Burgess Tea]

Ahh haha glad it wasn’t just me! I never usually store tea between steepings, but my Yunnan tasted so lovely after 4 steepings, I was sure it could take many more and wanted to continue drinking it with my friend the following weekend, but was horribly surprised.

One lovely lady well-versed in the tea drinking world for many years has suggested of rinsing it before brewing on my youtube channel. I may try that, as with pu-ers. And I may experiment storing it in a closed container/ fridge! I know it is generally recommended to not do this, but that’s for storage of under 12 hours, not for week-long storage! Will keep experimenting – I may come up with something. Yulia X

[steanze]

It is still unclear to me why you would want to store the tea for that long...

Can you tell us what brewing parameters you are using (grams of tea/ml of water)? I echo others' suggestions:
- you can use a smaller teapot, same tea/water ratio, so that to get the same amount of tea you need to do multiple infusions, depleting the leaves;
- you can use the same teapot, with a lower tea/water ratio and longer infusions, so that the tea will last for a lower number of infusions.

By the way, welcome to the forum! I see that you are a vendor, you can contact the forum moderator (Chip) who will add a vendor tag to your name.

[kuánglóng]

Hi guys, I am a huge fan of Don Mei here in London and his youtube channel and all of his suggestions.

Isn't that the bloke who sells sheng from 1600yr old trees?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1GXbcZrgDs&t=175s

I'm out

[toby]

Hi guys, I am a huge fan of Don Mei here in London and his youtube channel and all of his suggestions.

Isn't that the bloke who sells sheng from 1600yr old trees?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1GXbcZrgDs&t=175s

I'm out

Same here

[toby]

Hi guys, I am a huge fan of Don Mei here in London and his youtube channel and all of his suggestions. But, I’ve been trying his method of storing tea leaves in a dry clean towel between steepings, and whilst this may work for storing leaves for 12 hours or less, it goes horribly wrong if you want to store them for any longer, like a week in my case: XXXX

My beautiful Yunnan golden buds went from a malty milky chocolate flavour (XXXX) to mouldy potatoes! I know I say in the video that it must have become contaminated with food odours, but that’s not it, as I actually stored it in my room, which smells like roses of course! In any case, I have no food in my room.

Does anyone have experience with this? Is it possible to store tea leaves for a week and to maintain the flavour? What method works? It’s such a shame if this isn’t possible. Yulia X

Buy smaller gaiwan.

[Psyck]

It is all in your mind.
A week did not really pass by since you steeped those leaves.
It only felt like that as you were watching Don Mei's videos.

[ethan]

It is all in your mind.
A week did not really pass by since you steeped those leaves.
It only felt like that as you were watching Don Mei's videos.

That's funny! and possibly true!