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Olden green tea is a difficult tea to re-render well. The most it lost is not only the floral aroma but also the freshness in taste. If the condition is not so bad, most amino acids, the substance that give it the “umami” character, should still be there. To maximize what is left of the green tea, I increase the tea to water ratio and raise a very tiny bit the infusion temperature but reduce infuse time. The Yixing tea pot helps to reduce the bitterness of doing this and to give you a smoother texture. I also find that every single selection can be quite different in the degree of this modification and the condition of deterioration is also a variable factor.
As you have said, prevention of oldening is the best way to enjoy green tea. One way to do that is to store your finds well in a fridge in small batches, say 60~80 gram small packs, so you can always have a fresh batch at room temperature continuously throughout the year.Hope this help, and pls let me know how you have experiment with your stock.You are the first to ask for that in this forum, but certainly not the first if I count all other communication means. I can promise you that I’ll do that but I really don’t have a clue when I can fulfill this promise. Works are back-logged terribly. I’ll nevertheless put this in very high priority.
It is great to know that there is one more person paying great care in maintaining the quality of your tea collection, coz there aren’t many.
The vacuum + quick freeze method had been practiced by the tieguanyin makers for quite many years, but the shelf life isn’t that much longer than that of those green teas that are just stored chilled. A packer once propose to me the use of nitrogen-filled pack and chill. The Japanese use silica gel and chill… there are different practices and all with something in there.You are right in pointing out that moisture is an issue. I’ll certainly write more about that, but I am not sure if that is the only thing that makes a green tea fade. Most green tea are dried to a standard of 5~7%, but they still fade within a vacuum pack. I think it simply isn’t a great topic enough for scientists. At least not until some of them find out how good fresh green teas are.Agree. However, a visit to the workshops there is good education for preparing yourself as a better trader for the products.
That’s correct. Although keeping tea in the freezer does keep the color for a much longer time, the tea would degenerate much more rapidly upon return to room temperature. This is a topic that concerns freezing technology and we have not found any scientific documentation yet concerning similar topics. All we have written is from what we have observed and experienced. I hope with the hopeful increase of the general consumption of finer green tea, corresponding research in the issue can be addressed and we can have fresh green tea supply all over the world all year round. I think the this would involve only a simple application with existing technologies, but the costs of it is barring small producers from trying it. The catch is, almost all finer teas are produced by smaller producers.
Bai Mudan is actually a bit different from Shoumei. For the limited understanding of you through the description, I think the former is more for you than the latter. As to what makes bouquet style dancongs a tea better than so many others in clearing blockages, I really don’t know. I have been turning hundreds (literally) of research papers on the analysis of tea compositions and really none explains much about the medicinal differences different teas have. All we have been telling the readers in terms of TCM properties are actually pretty much from our experiences with ourselves and our customers. We have discussed some tea TCM logic with a few very prestigious TCM doctors and they have been supportive and in agreement, but lot of TCM doctors aren’t even aware of that. We have administered certain combinations to different customers with extremely high success rate, and think more people should should be aware of that. We actually have more followers who are Western doctors than TCM doctors, to be honest. We have some theories, but need some concrete data to back up before we can say things more “scientificly” in Western terms. Hopefully you’ll see an article about that in a few months.
Generally shu pu’er is a safe tea for most. However, from your description it seems like you should avoid using it solely as your daily tea, particularly if you do not exercise regularly. However, if your diet involves quite an abundance of grease and meat, you’ll need the pu’er to maintain lower cholesterols. In that case, employ another tea as your regular so you are drinking at least two types of teas of complimentary TCM properties. Baimudan and Dancongs are good options. Use fresher ones if you can find them. In addition to “Litchee” dancong, there is another group that are floral and would drive away the “blockages” more effectively, they are the bouquet ones I discussed in this Tea Guardian article: https://www.teaguardian.com/Tea_Varieties/oolong_phx_bouquet.html
The real big problem is not the route or finding a courier, but rather packing the products safely. You have to work out with your supplier on that before sending the things for shipment or courier.
Shipping cartons to outside of China is quite convenient using international couriers, except for the unbelievably high rate. Use local couriers if any would cover your destination, but be warned that some deliver only to the port, or their own warehouse.
