Tea leaves have a shelf life. If you drank expired tea, it would have a bad influence on your health. Can tea be kept in the refrigerator to extend the shelf life like other foods?
Tea leaves are easy to absorb moisture and odor, so special attention should be paid to preserving tea leaves.
If not carefully stored, the taste and storage time of tea will change greatly.
The innate characters of tea determine its preservation method. Like sponges or charcoal, tea is prone to absorbing water and unpleasant odor. If it is not well preserved, its taste and aroma will be negatively affected by moisture and odor, and the shelf life will be greatly shortened. Before the advent of refrigerators, in order to better preserve tea, ancient Chinese people used their wisdom to find some good ways to store tea. Some of them are very practical until now.After the refrigerator became a household device, its fresh-keeping function was also applied to the preservation of tea leaves.A problem that arises is that some people do not know which teas are suitable for low-temperature storage in the refrigerator,as a wet and cold refrigerator environment can reduce the lifespan of certain teas.
Chinese Purple Mud Tea Canister (1920s)
In order to prolong the shelf life of tea, what we usually do is: avoid putting tea in humid and high-temperature place, try to eliminate oxygen to prevent natural oxidation, slow deterioration, stay away from articles with peculiar smells, such as food, flowers, edible spices, etc. This is the general practice of storing most teas.These methods are great if you don't have a refrigerator or if conditions don't permit.
1. Green tea, yellow tea
Under the influence of the external environment, green tea and yellow tea are most prone to aging and deterioration. Higher temperature and moist air are their number one enemies, which will accelerate the natural oxidation process of green tea.Once they are not well preserved, they will lose their original glossy color and pleasant fragrance. Because they haven't gone through the fermentation step, they're vulnerable to odors, heat and moisture. Therefore, it is best to put them in the refrigerator, which can not only prevent the tea from moisture and high temperature, avoid light and oxygen,and stay away from articles with peculiar smells, but also help keep them preserving good taste and vivid color for a long time.
2.Black tea and completely-fermented oolong tea
Compared with green tea, black tea and completely fermented oolong tea contain less tea polyphenols,so they age and deteriorate slowly and are easier to preserve. In a general way, they can be placed in closed and dry containers to avoid light, high temperature and odor. So there is no need to put them in the refrigerator for a long time.
Chinese Purple Mud Tea Container (1900s)
3.White tea
Dryness is the key factor in the preservation of white tea. The dryness of white tea should reach at least 98%. Before storing white tea, it can be dehumidified with quicklime, and then stored in a closed dry container and placed in a cool and dry place. Therefore, the key to preserving white tea is staying away from the humid environment.Therefore, refrigeration or low temperature conditions are not necessary for the storage of white tea.
Chinese hexagonal purple sand tea pot (1700 - 1722)
4.Pu-erh tea
Pu-erh tea is a little different from other tea type. It is a post fermentation tea. The longer it is stored, the better it tastes. Pu-erh tea should be placed in a ventilated, cool and dry environment, so as to provide a good natural aging environment for beneficial strains contained in Pu-erh tea and promote the natural aging. Pu-erh tea can not age naturally under low temperature, in which it will become moldy easily.
There are many ways to preserve tea on the Internet, and the principles behind these methods are roughly the same. Maybe you can spend more time trying some of the methods you are interested in, and then draw your own conclusions.
All in all,the best way to store tea leaves is to stay away from sunlight, high temperature, moisture and unpleasant odors. Whether to use the refrigerator to store tea at low temperature needs to be determined according to the fermentation degree of tea: The lower the degree of fermentation of tea, the more unstable its natural quality. Therefore, it is necessary to put it in the refrigerator for freezing. Similarly, for those teas with a relatively high degree of fermentation, especially Pu-erh tea, it is not suitable to be stored in the wet and cold conditions of the refrigerator.However, in one case, if you have a lot of tea and need to keep it for a long time, low-temperature storage in the refrigerator is also reasonable (Pu-erh tea should not be included).
Chinese Glazed pottery pot (618-907)
Tips:
When tea leaves are stored in the refrigerator, attention should be paid to the compactness of tea leaves and the smell in the refrigerator. The tea leaves stored in the refrigerator must be sealed. You can first put the tea into the packaging box, then put on the fresh-keeping film to seal it, and then put it into the refrigerator for storage.In addition, making them keep away from articles with peculiar smell is a must. When you take out the tea from the refrigerator, you cannot immediately open the tea bag and expose the tea to the air. Before opening the tea bag, you should let the packaged tea rise to room temperature. Because low temperature tea leaves are easy to condense the water vapor in the air, increase the water content of the tea leaves, and make tea leaves deteriorate.
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