Many steeps over a multiple day period - tea leaves?

Leave them in the brewing vessel or put them on a saucer to dry. There will be some difference as the tea will oxidize a bit after having water on it.

I experimented with this early in my tea days, usually spreading my tea leaves out on a sauce or on a paper towel to help them dry out; however, I wouldn’t recommend it now except under very specific circumstances. For one, it’s too easy to get this wrong, at best diluting the flavor or at worst promoting bacterial or mold growth. It’s not worth the effort IMHO.

Having said that, I have zero problems reusing tea in the morning if my first steep was late the night before. My rationale for this is that I will sometimes brew some tea in the morning before work and return to a second or third steep 6 or 7 hours later without any problems. Thus, when I’m in the mood for a late cup and it’s the first steep, I’ll leave it in my gaiwan and make a second steep early in the morning. I haven’t run into many problems doing this, but on some rare occasions, the flavor was weaker than usual. I usually toss it after that morning steep though.

I have been known to keep using the same tea leaves a second day. It mostly depends on how many steeps I got our of it the first day as well as my current mood.

I just tend to leave the leaves in my infuser basket on my desk here at work. They’re usually dry the next morning.

If they are large leaves put them out on a paper towel to dry, this works better if you live in a dry area. But yes whatever you do get them dried off. Mei leaf tested this extensively and couldnt tell much difference between a 12 hour dry and just leaving it sitting in the strainer or gaiwan for an hour between steeps, which is what most of us do.

My new technique is when Im done for the day, Ill steep the heck out of them put the tea in a thermos and make iced tea for the next day. This is much more convenient as I dont have to dry out and then steep the leaves the next day which is a real pain in the rear hindquarter.

While I’ve done this a few times in the past, it is generally rare nowadays, since I try to start out with as many grams as I plan to finish the same day. With some teas like Shu or Blacks (Reds), I may boil the last steep to extract whatever it has left. If I still happen to have some leaves unfinished at the end of the day, I may store the final brew & leaves in the fridge for iced tea the next day (may have to add some more fresh leaves if it is light) – though this cannot be done for all types of teas. I have also seen several posts about people brewing the leaves from the same pot/gaiwan over several days/weeks without any issues – maybe not even bothering about removing them from the pot unless it is clay.

Tea brewed from yesterday’s leaves always tastes a little moldy to me. I think cold-brewing is the best use of half-spent leaves.

I rarely encounter this problem though thanks to smaller teaware which lets me use only what I need for the session.

Thanks, everyone. I have been spreading them out to dry because I just can’t drink all those little cups of tea in the morning before work and I don’t want to waste those fancy oolongs and pu’ers. Also, most of my teas are samples and I’ve been trying to get a sense over a couple of days how I feel about a particular tea. But it doesn’t taste as good next day, and I have been worried about mold issues when the gas heat is no longer cranking and drying out those little leaves thoroughly.

I just need more tea :)