Among the aged tea products preserved today, many antique teas, printed teas, and early seven-son cakes from distant eras were stored in Hong Kong warehouses. Simply for preserving a large quantity of aged tea products, Hong Kong tea warehouses have secured an indelible historical status. Moreover, the long-accumulated storage experience and techniques have created the quality of Hong Kong-stored aged tea that other warehouses find difficult to replicate.

Hong Kong's storage techniques hold significant reference value for both warehouses in other regions and private tea storage. The uniqueness of Hong Kong-stored aged tea lies in its special aged tea aroma, which is inseparable from decades of storage experience. Hong Kong tea warehouses can generally be divided into two categories: wet storage (地仓) and dry storage. Wet storage uses natural humidity to accelerate the transformation of tea products; dry storage is used to reduce warehouse flavors from tea and, in recent years, also for storing dry-stored tea. Wet storage is the core of Hong Kong's traditional storage, and whether tea can develop an enchanting aged aroma largely depends on the control of the wet storage environment.

The location selection for wet storage is very important. The best sites are semi-underground warehouses built against hills facing southeast. The elevated terrain helps gather moisture from the air and provides stable ground humidity. With sufficient natural humidity, well-conditioned wet storage does not require artificial humidification. Tea storage warehouses should remain relatively sealed to retain tea aromas indoors, avoiding excessive ventilation that would dissipate tea quality. To prevent tea deterioration, warehouses must strictly avoid light—windows should be sealed with thick curtains or wooden boards, lights should be turned off, and tea should be aged in darkness. A good tea warehouse takes time to develop. After long-term tea storage, the warehouse walls lose their earthy smell and absorb the aroma of aged tea.

Tea stored in Hong Kong warehouses develops a layer of milky-white mold. This process is unavoidable during storage, similar to the fermentation of ripe Pu-erh tea. What needs to be controlled in storage management is the speed and degree of tea transformation. Warehouses must control humidity and temperature to prevent rapid ripening of tea. Building materials should be moisture-absorbent bricks and concrete, so walls and floors absorb moisture when damp and release it when dry to maintain stable humidity. To prevent tea from directly absorbing moisture from walls and floors, tea should be placed on pallets to keep it off the ground and away from walls. The floor should also be covered with a layer of lime for moisture prevention. Since each piece and each bundle of tea in the warehouse occupies different positions, long-term aging can result in uneven transformation. To reduce aging disparities and prevent bottom tea from deforming under pressure, warehouses must periodically rotate stock, swapping the positions of upper and lower tea stacks every three to four months.

Because tea has strong absorbency, environmental odors are quickly absorbed. Therefore, warehouses must be kept clean. "Tea enjoys company" is a common saying among old warehouse owners. To achieve good storage results, warehouses should be filled with various types of tea. Teas of different years and origins stored together in one space allow their aromas to interact and stimulate each other, developing the unique aged tea aroma characteristic of Hong Kong. The aging time for tea in wet storage depends on the raw material and the desired level of transformation, typically in three-year cycles. Hong Kong's dry storage mostly uses above-ground rooms. In the early days, such storage primarily served to reduce warehouse flavors from wet-stored tea. The principle of reducing warehouse flavors is similar to that of ripened tea after pile fermentation. Tea removed from wet storage needs to be placed in a relatively sealed environment with controlled ventilation to allow moisture to gradually dissipate, causing white mold to fade and warehouse flavors to weaken. This stage usually takes three to five years or more. During the era when wet-stored tea was popular, intentional dry storage was rare. Many early aged teas came from Hong Kong's wet storage, and it was precisely Hong Kong's wet storage that gave Pu-erh tea a second life.