Howdy group!

This is a mundane question of you knowledgable and sometimes
testy people. I am new with this group and working on the taste
variations in what teas I can get my hands on locally. I store the
bulk teas in canisters with rubber rings and metal whatever they call
it things that hold the lid down. Like ancient canning jars. The
canisters are blue pottery and have wooden spoons slipped into a
pottery holder on the side which is the reason I used them for the
tea. In them I have a white, a ceylon and two different assams. In
glass ones I have various tea bags with paper envelope covers. I do
not live in a humid climate, mold has never been the problem in the
past. To the questions:
1. Do the teas need 'airing?' or are they ok with just opening
to use regularly or occasionally.
2. Is there anything wrong with them sitting on the kitchen
counter, not in direct sunlight?

Thanks in advance for your answer. The advice on the white tea
you provided earlier stimulated me to do some research for more
knowledge. I will never again purchase a tea without prior research.
What am I going to do with 8 oz cheap white tea. Hmmmm! I bake bread
lots. I wonder if brewed white tea cooled and used as the liquid in
bread with snippets of dried apricot would taste any good. Any
suggestions?

Mary - from the pacific northwest of the USA

On Jun 8, 3:11 pm, hilltop > wrote:
> Howdy group!
>
> This is a mundane question of you knowledgable and sometimes
> testy people. I am new with this group and working on the taste
> variations in what teas I can get my hands on locally. I store the
> bulk teas in canisters with rubber rings and metal whatever they call
> it things that hold the lid down. Like ancient canning jars. The
> canisters are blue pottery and have wooden spoons slipped into a
> pottery holder on the side which is the reason I used them for the
> tea. In them I have a white, a ceylon and two different assams. In
> glass ones I have various tea bags with paper envelope covers. I do
> not live in a humid climate, mold has never been the problem in the
> past. To the questions:
> 1. Do the teas need 'airing?' or are they ok with just opening
> to use regularly or occasionally.
> 2. Is there anything wrong with them sitting on the kitchen
> counter, not in direct sunlight?
>
> Thanks in advance for your answer. The advice on the white tea
> you provided earlier stimulated me to do some research for more
> knowledge. I will never again purchase a tea without prior research.
> What am I going to do with 8 oz cheap white tea. Hmmmm! I bake bread
> lots. I wonder if brewed white tea cooled and used as the liquid in
> bread with snippets of dried apricot would taste any good. Any
> suggestions?
>
> Mary - from the pacific northwest

Hiya Mary,

Testy?!? How dare you! (I'm just kidding by the way It isn't about
being testy just real. This isn't the place to try to lie to promote
some business or ripoffs or scams, it is a place to talk tea with a
serious, diverse, and good mix of characters. I think if you stick
around you'll see how it truly is. We're all here to help and to
learn, no matter how long we've been at it.

As for storage what you have will work but is not optimal. Those jars
don't always seal the best and the rubber seal can impart a bit of a
taste sometimes. Also, airing out is bad. The oils dry out of the
leaves and it becomes stale.

I keep two containers for each of my teas that I keep in any quantity,
one small food-grade glass jar with a tight fitting screw on lid and
one big one. I only transfer from the big to the small one to refill
it which keeps it as fresh as possible since it stays mostly closed. I
also keep them in a cupboard to keep light out and a constant
temperature and humidity.

There are stainless steel tea tins, and it is nice to find the double
seal type. They work very well.

As for the white tea, you could try to make iced tea from it. It pairs
well with lighter fruit flavors, like honeydew. What I'd be super
interested in is how that bread would be?!? That sounds like a heck of
a creative and neat idea. I'd kill for a sweeter bread with green tea
(matcha maybe) incorporated in it. Really cool idea. but I'm no baker.

I know I wasn't on my best behavior today, so I apologize for myself.

- Dominic

Dominic schreibtete:
> I'd kill for a sweeter bread with green tea
> (matcha maybe) incorporated in it. Really cool idea. but I'm no baker.

Hey Dominic,

I bake all my bread myself, scandinavian style, flat and a little
sweet, and I´ve been working on something like that for a while.
However, I think there´s still "some" space for improvement. The only
tea bread I care to remember I found in a fancy bakery in Georgetown,
Malaysia.[Komtar Tower]. A wonderful combination of sweetness, notes
of malt and yeast and an expressive background of what somehow
reminded me of Lung Ching. The intense green color must have been some
kind of food coloring though, the matcha bell didn´t ring. Anyway,
this bread spoke of 100% wheat, but I´m basically a sour dough and rye
guy, which complicates matters a bit, but in the latter case some
cooked no-name Pu-Erh has been my favorite partner so far. A plain
weird combo indeed, pretty hard to find the "right" balance.

Karsten

On Jun 8, 6:53 pm, wrote:
> Dominic schreibtete:
>
> > I'd kill for a sweeter bread with green tea
> > (matcha maybe) incorporated in it. Really cool idea. but I'm no baker.
>
> Hey Dominic,
>
> I bake all my bread myself, scandinavian style, flat and a little
> sweet, and I´ve been working on something like that for a while.
> However, I think there´s still "some" space for improvement. The only
> tea bread I care to remember I found in a fancy bakery in Georgetown,
> Malaysia.[Komtar Tower]. A wonderful combination of sweetness, notes
> of malt and yeast and an expressive background of what somehow
> reminded me of Lung Ching. The intense green color must have been some
> kind of food coloring though, the matcha bell didn´t ring. Anyway,
> this bread spoke of 100% wheat, but I´m basically a sour dough and rye
> guy, which complicates matters a bit, but in the latter case some
> cooked no-name Pu-Erh has been my favorite partner so far. A plain
> weird combo indeed, pretty hard to find the "right" balance.
>
> Karsten


This bread-tea thing has my mind in overdrive... if only I could bake
I'd be up to my eyeballs in flour by now experimenting I've made
some great dishes that use tea by changing out some of the more basic
teas in the recipes for ones I knew would fit better, and a few
"gourmet" bubble tea creations.

Lung ching would be cool in a bread, but I'd still kill for matcha or
even a sencha/matcha mix. Pu-erh would actually be a good match for
those types of bread, seriously the possibilities. I'm sure it has
already been done a million times over through history, it's just that
it would have never even crossed my mind to look (that and I'm not a
sweets/pastry guy). I'll have to hunt around the Inter-tubes for some
info on it... yet another odd tangent to go off reading on

- Dominic

> 1. Do the teas need 'airing?' or are they ok with just opening
> to use regularly or occasionally.

Those types of teas do not need airing.


> 2. Is there anything wrong with them sitting on the kitchen
> counter, not in direct sunlight?

No problem putting them on the counter either.



> Hmmmm! I bake bread
> lots. I wonder if brewed white tea cooled and used as the liquid in
> bread with snippets of dried apricot would taste any good. Any
> suggestions?

Or........
What if you ground the tea into a flour as used it as part of the
bread flour?

Mike
www.pu-erh.net

An air tight container is a good rule of thumb for storing loose
teas. There is no requirement for the occasional airing. If it is a
commercial tea then the original packaging will be good enough for
storage including the cardboard packaging. I don't even bother to
swap out the tea from vendors that come in the fold down tab paper
bags with the moisture barrier. I'll even keep the tea in their mylar
pouches because of the better than average strip seal. My personal
favorite is the classic tin with the seated lid which is getting
harder to find on the shelves. I've had good luck shopping the snack
isle for tins in Chinatown. Instead of the seated lid they'll have
the plastic cap. What will be more challenging is finding something
that fits your shelves and everyday use. For long term storage it is
whatever works. For everyday use then a more collaborative integrated
stylistic presentation that makes a statement about tea. Mine is a
storage rack hung on a pantry door that holds about 50 100g
rectangular containers made of semitransparent brittle plastic in
various colors with an airtight cap itself of sufficent capacity to
hold the remaining tea while adding the new if that makes any
ergonometric sense.

Jim

PS I don't know what cheap white tea you're talking about. If it is
SowMee then clog a pot with it. I'd say 20% tea to pot volume with
boiling water. It is one of my favorite teas when made that way.

hilltop wrote:
> Howdy group!
>
> This is a mundane question of you knowledgable and sometimes
> testy people. I am new with this group and working on the taste
> variations in what teas I can get my hands on locally. I store the
> bulk teas in canisters with rubber rings and metal whatever they call
> it things that hold the lid down. Like ancient canning jars. The
> canisters are blue pottery and have wooden spoons slipped into a
> pottery holder on the side which is the reason I used them for the
> tea. In them I have a white, a ceylon and two different assams. In
> glass ones I have various tea bags with paper envelope covers. I do
> not live in a humid climate, mold has never been the problem in the
> past. To the questions:
> 1. Do the teas need 'airing?' or are they ok with just opening
> to use regularly or occasionally.
> 2. Is there anything wrong with them sitting on the kitchen
> counter, not in direct sunlight?
>
> Thanks in advance for your answer. The advice on the white tea
> you provided earlier stimulated me to do some research for more
> knowledge. I will never again purchase a tea without prior research.
> What am I going to do with 8 oz cheap white tea. Hmmmm! I bake bread
> lots. I wonder if brewed white tea cooled and used as the liquid in
> bread with snippets of dried apricot would taste any good. Any
> suggestions?
>
> Mary - from the pacific northwest of the USA

> Or........
> What if you ground the tea into a flour as used it as part of the
> bread flour?

I believe matcha is pretty popular in baking, so this might just
work. I'd be interested to hear results if anyone is brave enough to
try it out.

Oops, I just read back and saw that a bunch of people already made the
matcha observation. Sorry about that! Anyway, I'd still be
interested if anyone wants to try it out with other teas.

On Jun 8, 2:11 pm, hilltop > wrote:
> Howdy group!
>
> This is a mundane question of you knowledgable and sometimes
> testy people. I am new with this group and working on the taste
> variations in what teas I can get my hands on locally. I store the
> bulk teas in canisters with rubber rings and metal whatever they call
> it things that hold the lid down. Like ancient canning jars. The
> canisters are blue pottery and have wooden spoons slipped into a
> pottery holder on the side which is the reason I used them for the
> tea. In them I have a white, a ceylon and two different assams. In
> glass ones I have various tea bags with paper envelope covers. I do
> not live in a humid climate, mold has never been the problem in the
> past. To the questions:
> 1. Do the teas need 'airing?' or are they ok with just opening
> to use regularly or occasionally.
> 2. Is there anything wrong with them sitting on the kitchen
> counter, not in direct sunlight?
>
> Thanks in advance for your answer. The advice on the white tea
> you provided earlier stimulated me to do some research for more
> knowledge. I will never again purchase a tea without prior research.
> What am I going to do with 8 oz cheap white tea. Hmmmm! I bake bread
> lots. I wonder if brewed white tea cooled and used as the liquid in
> bread with snippets of dried apricot would taste any good. Any
> suggestions?
>
> Mary - from the pacific northwest of the USA

Airing is for linens and cottons. The only reason to air teas is to
make sure the air they're stored in is dry and odor free. My Upton
teas are stored in their original containers, air squeezed out, and
then put in ceramic cannisters. Assam is in one, Ceylon is in the
second, and all the opened samples with clips are in a third. My
greens right now are bought locally and kept in their original
labelled sandwich bags and then put in metal cannisters, reused from
old teas. I have sencha, genmai, and twig. Tisanes are also kept in
small metal cannisters. Toci

> As for the white tea, you could try to make iced tea from it. It pairs
> well with lighter fruit flavors, like honeydew. What I'd be super
> interested in is how that bread would be?!? That sounds like a heck of
> a creative and neat idea. I'd kill for a sweeter bread with green tea

Well Crew -
several ideas I find worthwhile to persue. The storage will stay the
same for now with the plan to up it gradually. The white tea made
very strong to try and the idea of the breads. I have made some
strong tea jellys and if I use the same tea as the liquid and sweeten
with the jelly the yeast and flour may not overwhelm the tea flavor.
I will try that when I begin baking again after we move in about 2
weeks. Moving is the PITTS! Thanks for the discussion.Mary

ps a breakfast 'coffee (tea) cake' spread with walnuts glazed with
the tea jelly makes my mouth water here at 9:30 pm.

hilltop wrote:

> What am I going to do with 8 oz cheap white tea.

Well, you could follow Michelle's example and gargle with it in the
evenings. She suggests that it helps improve dental health (see
http://www.tching.com/index.php/2007...preschoolers-i
ncreasing/)

Jo
--

On Jun 8, 8:37 pm, "Dominic T." > wrote:
> On Jun 8, 6:53 pm, wrote:
>
>
>
> > Dominic schreibtete:
>
> > > I'd kill for a sweeter bread with green tea
> > > (matcha maybe) incorporated in it. Really cool idea. but I'm no baker.
>
> > Hey Dominic,
>
> > I bake all my bread myself, scandinavian style, flat and a little
> > sweet, and I´ve been working on something like that for a while.
> > However, I think there´s still "some" space for improvement. The only
> > tea bread I care to remember I found in a fancy bakery in Georgetown,
> > Malaysia.[Komtar Tower]. A wonderful combination of sweetness, notes
> > of malt and yeast and an expressive background of what somehow
> > reminded me of Lung Ching. The intense green color must have been some
> > kind of food coloring though, the matcha bell didn´t ring. Anyway,
> > this bread spoke of 100% wheat, but I´m basically a sour dough and rye
> > guy, which complicates matters a bit, but in the latter case some
> > cooked no-name Pu-Erh has been my favorite partner so far. A plain
> > weird combo indeed, pretty hard to find the "right" balance.
>
> > Karsten
>
> This bread-tea thing has my mind in overdrive... if only I could bake
> I'd be up to my eyeballs in flour by now experimenting I've made
> some great dishes that use tea by changing out some of the more basic
> teas in the recipes for ones I knew would fit better, and a few
> "gourmet" bubble tea creations.
>
> Lung ching would be cool in a bread, but I'd still kill for matcha or
> even a sencha/matcha mix. Pu-erh would actually be a good match for
> those types of bread, seriously the possibilities. I'm sure it has
> already been done a million times over through history, it's just that
> it would have never even crossed my mind to look (that and I'm not a
> sweets/pastry guy). I'll have to hunt around the Inter-tubes for some
> info on it... yet another odd tangent to go off reading on
>
> - Dominic

Isn't there a matcha tea-cake recipe in Art of Tea No 2 that could be
adapted to whole wheat? I'm no baker but it looks pretty good to me...

On Jun 8, 9:34 pm, "Dominic T." > wrote:

> I'd kill for a sweeterbreadwith green tea
> (matchamaybe) incorporated in it. Really cool idea. but I'm no baker.

- Dominic

Nor am I and again - sorry - no matcha. I just tried a new version of
my beloved sweetish sourdough flat bread [80% rye]. This time I added
some mediocre tippy Dian Hong, steeped to medium-strength [~12g/l,
4min.]. Instead of the usual dark beet syrup I used plain white sugar.
Mhh, not bad, the well known tangy, slightly metallic edges of that
bread have been "stuffed out" [for lack of a better term] considerably
by the additional flavors of the tea. They´re still there, but with
the tea staying completely in the background the overall taste of that
bread is more "harmonic" and certainly "deeper", without loosing any
of its rustic character. At this medium concentration without knowing
what exactly had been added, I would have a hard time guessing it´s
tea.
Next week I´ll use a somewhat stronger brew of the same leaves, maybe
twice as strong and see how it turns out.
..
Karsten

On Jun 9, 3:11 am, hilltop > wrote:
> Howdy group!
>
> This is a mundane question of you knowledgable and sometimes
> testy people. I am new with this group and working on the taste
> variations in what teas I can get my hands on locally. I store the
> bulk teas in canisters with rubber rings and metal whatever they call
> it things that hold the lid down. Like ancient canning jars. The
> canisters are blue pottery and have wooden spoons slipped into a
> pottery holder on the side which is the reason I used them for the
> tea. In them I have a white, a ceylon and two different assams. In
> glass ones I have various tea bags with paper envelope covers. I do
> not live in a humid climate, mold has never been the problem in the
> past. To the questions:


Dry, out of sunlight, out of the air if possible. It's easy.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, if you are talking about pu'er storage, you will
need to consider keeping the tea in a place that has no ambient or
strong odors. It's also best to keep it in a airy place, but out of
light and too much moisture.