Video:How to Store Tea

SHARE ON                

Transcript:How to Store Tea

Hi, I'm Annelies Zijderveld with the Mighty Leaf Tea for About.com Food. Today we will be looking at how to properly store your tea.

The enemies of tea are air, light, and heat, so you will want to be very careful in terms of these three elements.

Keep Tea Bags Away From Light

This is something you would not want to do. All of these tea bags are vulnerable to air because there is no lid that is covering this container.

This is another way you wouldn't want to store your tea leaves. This particular container is made out of glass. If you were to keep this out on the countertop, light could penetrate the leaves, thus diminishing their potency.

Store Tea in Closed Containers

While tea leaves smell great, and some of them actually look like potpourri.

If you keep them out on your countertop, they'll smell good for a few days ,but then they will lose most of their potency. So you don't want to leave them out in open containers either.

Store Loose Tea in a Resealable Bag

Now, this is the preferred way to store loose tea. This bag is foil. There's a zip seal that seals off the top, so you can seal it back up.

It's very important to not be able to smell your tea leaves once it's properly sealed. If you can smell the tea leaves, what it means is that the aromas are getting out into the air and it's diminishing your tea.

Store Tea in Tins

Here's another way that you can store your tea. Tins are very popular in the tea world, and this could hold loose tea or, in this case, tea bags.

Each of these tea bags is nicely sealed in a triple foil overwrap, keeping the tea nicely fresh inside.

Thanks for watching. To learn more, please visit us on the Web at food.about.com.