Shelf-life of other ingredients in tea blends
Having accumulated some blends with fruit, grains, herbals, and other things that aren’t tea leaves, I’ve been wondering if I should pay more attention to how long I can enjoy them. I’ve heard that coconut doesn’t keep well. About how long will it be ok in typical storage conditions, and in your experience, are there other ingredients that don’t last as long as the average batch of tea? Both in terms of going bad, or losing flavor. Any input from fellow Steepsterites is greatly appreciated :)
I’ve seen dried fruit go funky and black. I’ve also seen chocolate chips get all spotty white, or melt at the bottom of tea tins during the summer.
I’ve heard DavidsTea say to consume their fruit and nut teas within 6 months. I’d say a year at most – depending on your climate and how well you store. After that, well, as long as it tastes good and not too stale.
Thanks for the info! Chocolate chips are one of the things I was concerned about as well. 6 months to a year sounds reasonable, I’ll just have to remember not to get too much tea. (And I should be doing that in the first place!)
Chocolate chips will definitely not keep as long and probably have the shortest shelf life of all of the ingredients people most commonly see in their teas.
For some reason it never occurred to me until you started this thread, but dried fruit, nuts, candies, and chocolate chips are also probably more likely to attract critters than plain tea. Dangit, that’s a lot of teas I’ll need to figure out sturdier storage for…
Ack, critters…while there aren’t many here, I do remember the one time I found a little flying bug in my kitchen, it was hovering outside my tea pantry as if trying to figure out how to get in. I’d just received some fruity-scented ones in the mail, so that was probably why… One can never be too careful!
I like to keep this rule in mind, how long would I keep these ingredients in my pantry for? Oddly enough, I have a blend of coconut chai that I put in the fridge to keep the coconut from going sour. Also, dried mint has a shorter shelf life than you may think. I have had a particular mint blend that had lost all of it’s wonderful minty punch after 6-ish months. I have never had teas with dried fruits long enough for them to go bad. I also live in a really dry environment.
I wouldn’t recommend refrigerating all your tea blends though! It drives my boyfriend nuts because I have a tiny stash in the corner of our fridge :P
I used to make the most kickass coconut chai. I’d toast the coconut flakes and add them to the tea as they cooled to impart more flavor. Sadly, coconut loses its flavor soooo fast in chai, so I couldn’t sell it anymore :(
That being said, you should definitely try toasting some coconut and adding it when making regular chai. It’s ahhhhmazing :-)
Also be aware that if you refrigerate your tea, it should be 100% vacuum sealed beforehand, otherwise, when removing it from the fridge, moisture from the air will be pulled in, and if you open the tin/bag before the tea has warmed up, the moisture will attach to the leaf, which can significantly decrease the life of your tea.
Thanks for the suggestions, it’s a good rule to keep in mind. Fortunately the climate here is pretty dry as well. As for refrigerating tea, my family does it with unopened containers (it’s kind of ridiculous how much tea I find in there when I visit), but I can see moisture being a concern and will keep that in mind if I try it.
Toasting coconut sounds pretty easy, I should try it sometime :)
Huh. I never thought of that before. I only keep like 4 teas in the fridge, all of them in tightly sealed tins. I usually wait a an hour or two to start drinking them. I will keep that in mind.
It’s this line of thought that has me seriously considering buying a FoodSaver. Has anyone had experience with vacuum packing your own teas? I kind of get worried that the leaves would get kind of crushed with anything but rolled oolongs
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