Rob wrote:
> That being said, however, at other peoples' houses I have had tea made
> from very old teabags - Red Rose and Tetley. I could tell they were
> old because the packaging had been redesigned several years earlier,
> and these were still the old design. I cringed when I saw that, but I
> was surprised that the tea tasted just fine.

Well, to think about it, good tea is picked in Spring, and is still
pretty
darned good in Winter. Back when tea was a major economic driver
of the British Empire, it could take months for the stuff to get from
garden to shop, sit there for a few months, end up in a caddy, , and
quite some time to reach the bottom of the caddy.

It doesn't go off, and if kept cool and dry and dark and away from
circulating
air, it shouldn't deteriorate too quickly. And if it started out at a
lower
quality, you can hardly expect to see it get much worse than you'd
expect
new low-quality tea to be.

Makes me wonder what Pu-erh would taste like if the mold didn't set
in...

--Blair