Puer Tea Storage Mistakes – Have You Made Them?

Excessive Ventilation

Many articles on storing Puer tea emphasize ventilation. However, excessive ventilation can not only cause the moisture content of the Puer tea to drop sharply, halting its aging process, but also introduce harmful bacteria from the air into the tea. Therefore, Puer tea is not suitable for long-term storage in highly ventilated environments.

Storage Environment

1. Humidity: The relative humidity of the environment should not be above 80% for extended periods, with an ideal range around 60%.

2. The environment where you store your tea should not have any strong odors, especially volatile smells, as tea readily absorbs flavors.

3. The tea should not be exposed to direct sunlight, as prolonged exposure can degrade the quality of the tea and cause it to turn red.

4. Ventilation: Aging Puer tea requires oxygen, so do not seal Puer tea tightly in plastic bags; it needs to breathe to some extent.

Storing Puer tea under dry conditions makes it easier to satisfy these requirements. However, when storing Puer tea in a more humid environment, special attention should be paid to the following points:

The Important First Steps

During the rainy season or summer, if the aroma of the Puer tea becomes noticeably stuffy, it indicates high environmental humidity. Using a fan to blow air around can help reduce the humidity. If you have a dehumidifier, running it for a while will also lower the tea's aroma to normal levels.

If there is prolonged rain, close the windows and doors to minimize the impact of external humidity on the room. A dehumidifier can also be used if available.

If no dehumidifying equipment is available, the room where Puer tea is stored should be as sunny as possible, as sunlight can help reduce environmental humidity.

Additional Tips

Where feasible, families can store Puer tea in clay jars. Practice has shown that tea stored in jars ages with a richer aroma, as clay jars allow for both breathability and a stable internal environment, which is beneficial for the aging of Puer tea.

Next, try not to open the bamboo shell packaging and keep similar types of tea together whenever possible.

Proper Puer tea storage requires practice and a personal connection with the tea. Even the same Puer tea stored in different places or by different people will develop different flavors over time. In this sense, every Puer tea collector participates in the production and quality creation of the tea, and the level of care put into storage will determine the outcome.

Experience in storing tea is gained through observation. Given the complexity of factors such as the environment and conditions, it is important to observe and adjust regularly to store Puer tea properly. (Source: Lai Pu Tea, Image Source: ChaYouNet)