Sheng tasting flat due to dry climate, is it reversible?
i’m buying a fridge right now but wondered if a bowl of water and maybe hanging around with some other cakes at a nice fridge party will revive my poor dry puerh?
just gotta make it thru the winter. once it starts to warm up, add some humidity (beads, boveda packs, small bowl of filtered water). but monitoring things closely.
I live in a dry climate, the only time we have humidity is during a short monsoon season.
My skin may dry out but my shue and sheng is doing well in separate Ohio Crocks. To raise humidity I use broken clay shards soaked in water every 4-5 days. I check my puerh often and enjoy the scent of living tea wafting out of the crocks. Any dry puerh came back to life.
’Cwyn’s Death By Tea Blog’ has several articles about crocks and storage, the journey is well worth reading.
My Maocha and broken cakes go into Jian Shui jars and retired clay teapots for shorter term storage.
I’ve tried various storage over the years: paper bags in a odourless cupboard, humidified containers or sealed up in the foil-lined zip-lock packets that they were sent out in (in the case of samples/part cakes)
I noticed that Pu-erh left in foil-lined packets retain their fragrance, vibrance and “verve”. I came across a sheng sample that had been left untouched for just over three years. When I opened it, it smelt so fresh and good and tasted great.
In contrast, my other methods have resulted in once good tea being a pale imitation of how it was on arrival. Some are undrinkable. I bought two foil sealed packets of the same ripe tea nuggets. The opened batch (and stored wrapped in paper) nuggets are now sour and I had to throw them. I later opened the second untouched bag, thinking these too will be ruined, but they tasted great, like the first bag once did.
So, I have decided to wrap all my cakes in tin foil and keep my samples sealed. I know Pu-erh storage is about IMPROVING the tea…. but I feel here in the UK it’s a safer path to aim for PRESERVING the tea.
Luckily I have expanded my collection a lot recently, so all my new cakes (75% of my collection) were wrapped in tin foil on arrival. Each time I open them to drink, they smell wonderful.
To address your question…. I’m not sure how to revive. I think the consensus will be getting some humidity in there, but I can’t see how this will restore the aromatics. Once they have escaped surely they are gone.
I know an airing out is desired sometimes – removing the fermented funk of a fresh ripe and rounding off some harshness of a young raw.
My advice would be to seal on arrival – or try that with some and see what you think (or break a cake in half, foil wrap half and do a side by side comparison in a year)
Dig out old samples that have been completely sealed in the foil packets and see if they are flat or fresh.
You’d be surprised what puerh can jump back from just with some humidity…I recently “took in” a cake that had been stored in someone’s Arizona cupboard for 3 years…bone dry. 3 months in storage at 60% RH and it tastes vibrant and magical, and all aromatics have returned. :-)
I’ll second what Whispering Pines said. I often buy dry storage tea from Kunming for aging; some of the 2005 7581s are terrible to drink when they come in and only a shadow of what they should be. In a year of good storage here in HK, I get sweet ripe date aromas from the cakes (the way a 7581 SHOULD smell with proper storage). While very drinkable now, I think they’ll be even better with more time. I have newer 7581s that won’t need twelve years to get there since they’re in HK dry storage. I should probably check on the 2014 7581s, but I think they’re still losing their fermentation funk!
So yes, you can revive pu erh with appropriate storage. I thought the aromatics would disappear too, but they don’t (pu erh cakes are seriously compressed and there’s lots of aromatics trapped deep within the cake).
What you do want to avoid is oolong-style modern pu erh. I tried some that had been dry stored nicely in Guangzhou. It must’ve been great tea when custom pressed by the dealer, but had almost no flavor at all down the line because of the way the tea was initially processed. This is my fear when buying fancy modern cakes—that they go flat down the line since they’re made to be delicious today.
@Rob I was just in London and I felt the humidity level in the house I stayed in would’ve been great for aging pu erh, and since homes are heated through the winter all you’d need to do is add a little humidity. Crock storage would probably work amazingly well in the UK.
@andresito
Approximately 18+ months. I’m relatively new to puerh but as my orders arrived it didn’t take long to realize I had to do something about storage in a dry environment or waste the money spent.
Occasionally I consider obtaining a mini fridge to use as a pumidor but as I don’t want a huge collection the moment passes. That may change if one comes my way.
Green tea guru uses plastic semi airtight storage boxes and then puts humidity beads in them and says it works great. Im trying the same technique and it definately keeps them moist, though IM using soaked paper towels in bowls
Yes I bought the beads and also used soaked paper towels in bowls in the past. Beware the soaked paper towels in particular, they can become a breeding ground for bacteria, mould etc. One of my boxes ended up really stinking even though I thought I was checking it enough. Especially in the warmer months this will be a problem. I settled on loads of shot glasses half filed with water and no media (beads or towels) to colonise the bacteria on. I changed the water frequently with cold distilled water.
But dispite this, I have moved to wrapping in foil and storing in boxes with no added humidity.
Clay humidity balls are probably best, I might go with straight water in a jar.
Its really tricky aging these things properly isnt it.. lol..
You don’t want anything organic in the water because it can feed mold, so paper is out. Clay should be good and I think polyester, nylon, etc. fiber should be okay as well. I use a small easy-gaiwan I received as a gift with about 1-2 oz of water to keep my pretty well sealed pumidor humidity up. I occasionally replace the water with 200 degree water which should kill anything in the water.
Indoor farmers (if you know what I mean) find those plastic beads break down and make their produce taste funny—not sure if this would happen to pu erh since it isn’t in direct contact with the beads. I’ve used water in shot glasses with a little colloidal silver to stop bacteria/fungi from growing in the water. I now realize I really DON’T need to add any humidity here in Hong Kong and should just let my tea do its thing in peace.
I have been using a wood drawer with florist foam soaked with water in a container. It has been keeping it between 60-70% humidity (too much?). I opened any packages I have and the smell is the drawer is very pleasant. Very fruity. I had kept my packages sealed for a long time but a few months ago opened them all up and they seem to taste better. Maybe I should be sealing them up now??
60-70% is about Kunming level—what are your temperatures like? I’d definitely keep them open to breathe as air exchange plays a key role in aging.
Your tea will age well, albeit slowly and delicately. The foam sounds like a mold hazard, though, and the wood drawer hopefully doesn’t smell woody at all as that smell might transfer over to your cakes over time
You can always mail it to me for revival. Minus a small part of the cakes as a fee. I am in with the humidity bringing them back to life. I agree with sealing as well but when the tea reaches the point that you want to cut off any more aging.
I agree 100%. Seal when you want to stop aging and oxidation! I have yet to try sealed aging but the lack of air exchange sounds less than ideal if you ever want your tea to really age like classic pu erh of old.
my big thing with my storage is to keep the tea alive and proper. i just buy aged puerh for aged tastes and young puerh for young tastes. i wont have the patience for aging a tea for 20 years. :-P
I do age pu erh, but I’m in one of the best places in the world for it! I still buy and drink aged pu erh too though. Gotta enjoy myself while I’m alive! lol
Its a pain in the rear hindquater trying to keep tea alive or improve it in the dryer areas of the US.
NY or Seattle would probably manage well, Florida even better… but Nevada… we got desert, desert, more desert… and humidity levels of about 5%…
If I lived somewhere really dry, I’d just focus on drinking it vs aging. Almost noone aged tea at home as little as 25 years ago! Except for Tibetans who had too much tea, maybe
yeah with a semi airtight box and 2 cups of water, I can get humidity to like 40-50%… which isnt terrible, it wont age quickly, but it wont dry out either.
@tealife.hk, I don’t know how much experience you have with dry climates but mine is that funky tastes disappear after 6 months or a year, but then so does some of the good flavours from really nice stuff. The fruit goes away.
And I don’t plan on drinking all my good sheng in one year!
So it’s a bit of a necessity… Also doesn’t help with my housemate turning the heating on full Haha
Rasseru, I’ve seen what very dry storage in Kunming warehouses can do to sheng and shu and I believe you would indeed lose aroma. Sounds like sealed bags are the way to go as Rob suggested!
Im actually wondering about a portable electric humidifier in a closet, then water jars inside the the plastic box, im wondering if that can get close to the 60-80% needed.
The one thing we do have here, is air temp is a very consistent 75 degrees. Because all the houses have central air/heating.
I have a nice desk humidifier that is cold and adjustable. Tea isn’t the only thing that dries out. The water needs to be changed daily.
Also, note that furnaces are supposed to have humidifiers in houses.
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