Tin vs. Straight from the Cake.. 2013 YS Xiangming — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #33


This week’s inbetweenisode is a comparison using Yunnan Sourcing’s 2013 Xiangming. One of the brews has been tinned for the past few months, whereas the other was freshly broken off.


11 responses to “Tin vs. Straight from the Cake.. 2013 YS Xiangming — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #33”

  1. Very interesting! You’ve piqued my curiousity and now I want to pick up some of those ceramic tins and do the experiment myself. There’s a daiso near my office. 😉

  2. Really good video! I love the comparison between the two way of storage and the effect on the tea. You mentioned that you store your Pu’erhs in a Pumador (mini-fridge). At what temp do you store them? I keep my greens and Oolongs in a mini fridge (all sealed) to keep them longer. I keep them at a fairly cold temp. Would this be detrimental to store my Pu’erhs at this same temp? Now, they are “on the shelf” exposed to the room temps, what ever the season brings. I’d love to hear what others do with their different teas.

    • If you use a mini fridge for puerh storage you would want it unplugged and room temp, and to keep the humidity inside the fridge around 70%, give or take depending on preference. Many ways to accomplish this, a simple bowl of water or a more expensive humidity control device made for cigar humidors. Here in the west puerh will dry out and lose life after awhile… Depending on how dry your local climate is.

      You also don’t NEED a pumidor. You can keep your cakes in ziplock freezer bags for instance. I’ve done so in the past and it worked fine.

      • Hi Kathryn & Brian,

        Thanks for the comments. Yes the fridge being unplugged. You definitely don’t want to keep your pu’erh cold. As Brian pointed out, there’s alot of different storage methods being explored in the west and the pumidor is definitely not the only way to go. Cwyn in particular discusses these in length on her blog.

        Cheers,
        -James

  3. I tin the tea as soon as I get the tea. I use Gladeware Interlocking Lid Containers. Even though they are plastic, they do not leave a taste. I had puerh in a container for four or so months and the tea was dramatically better.

    • Hi Uncle Larry,

      Thanks for the notes! I strongly suspect that setup is very close to the one in this episode.

      Cheers!
      -James

  4. James
    Thanks for this episode. Very interesting and, in my mind, somewhat surprising results for a young tea. What do you think is the key variable – volume of air to tea, degree of air flow, temp/humidity etc.? I like the idea of exploring how long the tea needs to be tinned to notice an effect. Also, to take it to the next level, perhaps Denny could prepare the tea for you so that you can do a ‘blind’ tasting. Our expectations are powerful 🙂 !
    Keep up the good work
    John

    • Hi John,

      Frankly, I’m not sure. I could see many of those being important. Quite tricky to weight them. I guess more experimentation is in order!

      Cheers,
      -James

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