Best Tea Storage Material (Bring your Facts and Opinions!)
Moisture is the main factor contributing to degradation of tea.
Regular ziplock baggies made out of polypropylene aren’t airtight, as Donna A mentioned, and are not well-suited for tea storage. Multilayered bags with aluminium foil layer are a good choice. Aluminum is 50 times less penetrable than pretty good polyethylene (PE 0.2 mm vs AL 0.05 mm, tested with water vapor).
Hey everybody, new to the site – like it so far!
My husband is an espresso aficionado, and he got me one of these containers for my tea: http://tightvac.com/contentCoffeeTea.php
I like it a lot, serves its purpose better than tins (that I’ve used before). HTH :)
I love the looks of the Washi tins, but the problem I foresee with them is washing them. Even if I consistently put the same tea in them, I am going to want to wash them out like…minimum once a year. If there is paper on the tins….makes it difficult. So I think for now whatever decorative tins without paper on them would be best, with good plastic baggies just in case of air seeping thru any cracks.
I only have one Washi tin, but the paper is fairly water resistant. I don’t immerse the outside fully into water, but I do wash out the inside with water and dish detergent and water does splash on the outside and hasn’t messed it up. What I like is that when I fill it with water, the water doesn’t leak out the way it does with the various decorative metal tins I’ve tested. I figure if water can leak out, air and moisture can get in to some degree. And brand name baggies are not air tight, since you can smell the tea through them. If anyone finds a decorative metal tin other than the paper covered ones that don’t leak when you put water in them, let me know!
If tea comes in a bag, I usually move it to a double lidded tin from Rishi. They seem great. The ones RoT uses for their tea is rubbish. I filled one with water to wash it for re-use, and all the water leaked out over the counter, which means it is not airtight. I keep most Teavivre tea in the double pouch it comes from.
Ashmanra, have you checked the Rishi to see if any water seeps through the seams?
Also, one company uses a special treated glass so you see the tea but it blocks UV rays, thus there is no degradation, but I have read that no one is really light is much of a factor anyway. The main culprit is air.
I remember seeing that somewhere, but don’t remember the price. Would like to get below the $10 and up that the Washi tins typically cost, but as I said before, they are the only ones’ I’ve found that don’t seem to leak at all when tested with water, even when turned upside down.
Also, Harney and Sons sells their tins quite cheaply. I think Upton does, too. They are not double lidded but they have held up nicely for me. I think you have to call Harney for price of the different sizes.
I have the black tins from Harney and I found that they don’t hold up nearly as good as the Rishi tins. Some of my Harney tins are ok, but most of them leak air really bad, to the point that some of my teas only last a few months. I usually stick hardier teas into my Harney tins and my delicate teas into the Rishi tins.
The Rishi are the best in my opinion, too. I haven’t had trouble with my Harney knes, but the Rishi seem super tight and I like the way they look. For any type of tea that I plan to refill and keep on shelf, I write the name of the tea on the tin with gold paint marker, I think from Zig. It really looks good!
Ashmanra, I was just on the Rishi site. They have a few types-a stainless steel with screw top lid for $6, a black double lidded for $4, and some Japanese washi starting at $10. Which are you referring too?
The ones I have and use are the black double lidded ones for $4. Right now I label them with post-it notes, but I have some spray paint chalk board paint that I plan on using on them to label them better.
The $4 double lidded. Love them! I do have one of the large copper colored ones with a knob on the inner lid for hubby’s Ceylon and he loves it, but he loves anything copper!
Donna, et All- I just found a couple of places with Washi for around
$8.00 us
not much off the price, but something
http://www.yuuki-cha.com/washi-green-tea-canisters
http://www.artoftea.com/catalog/washi-sashi-storage-tins-p-189.html
These are the ones I want. Maybe I will ask for them for Mother’s Day.
http://www.primatea.com/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=joy+tea+tins
P.S. Thank you Merton for posting your stash that included these tins.
http://www.specialtybottle.com I used this site personally for inexpensive containers for my teas and bulk storage containers for my white tea. Great site!!
Harney and Sons sells their plain black 4 oz. tins for just $1.00, 8 oz. for $1.25 and 3 lbs for $5.00. This is the best deal I’ve found on actual tins!
The problem is I’ve never seen the 4oz ones in stock, only the really large ones.
My thread over here kinda ties in with this one: http://steepster.com/discuss/4893-electronic-tea-labels
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