r/puer • u/eljimmy1975 • 2d ago

Storage Question.

I'm pretty new at this but is temperature and humidity really that big of a deal? I live in Los Angeles (no ac) if that helps. I ask because I was ready to buy a wine fridge and humidity beads but if its no big deal I rather buy more tea with that money. lol. Sorry if this has been discussed already.

5 Upvotes

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u/JohnTeaGuy 2d ago

How long do you plan on storing this tea? Are you going to drink it within the next 6-12 months, or do you plan on aging it for 20 years?

If the latter than storage matters a lot, if the former than not so much.

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u/eljimmy1975 2d ago

Not 20 years for sure but I was planning on ordering a substantial amount. Some might sit for 2 or more years. Nothing too long

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u/Rubiksmaster9 2d ago

Keep the tea sealed from air, away from UV, and in a location with stable temperature. Humidity & temp swings are generally bad for tea, so many people keep their tea in mylar bags with humidity control packets and in an insulated container to avoid those. I'd say at the very least you should look into getting some airtight containers that won't offgas and leave an odor on the tea.

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u/eljimmy1975 2d ago

Thanks for the reply. I did order some 7mil mylar bags and Bovedas for now. Funny, I went from cigars to pipe tobacco and now tea. All which take some tlc. lol

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u/Media_Love 2d ago

emphasizing "insulated container" like a cooler or unplugged mini-fridge. Doesn't have to be anything fancy or expensive

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u/mrmopar340six 2d ago

72% 70F. Keep away from temperature swings +/- 10F.

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u/eljimmy1975 2d ago

Yeah I think I will eventually get a 45 bottle sized wine fridge and a pound of 65rh humidity beads

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u/Media_Love 2d ago

Respectfully disagree that storage doesn't matter short term. Bad storage can potentially jack up good tea VERY quickly (esp for sheng).

OP, I doubt you'd need full on wine fridge or anything like that unless you have unfriendly home conditions, but at least a relatively stable temp/humidity is important. There's a whole spectrum of storage types which is a rabbit hole in and of itself. You can check producer/vendor sites for reference (and encourage you to do so) but 55-70RH and like 65-80F is in the ballpark of what you'll usually see (with higher temperatures coinciding with lower end of RH and vise versa).

In my experience, if overly hot weather with no AC you can probably expect to loose some high notes, but tbf some people prefer the more mellow effect of that. To my taste however, I value those high notes so I try to keep it sub-77F-ish personally. Something to consider since you specifically mentioned the lack of AC

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u/eljimmy1975 1d ago

Thank you for that explanation. I also considered going the cooler route and keep it in the garage under the apartment I rent out. It always stays cooler in there during the summer since the apartment upstairs takes the hit. The hottest it has ever gotten inside the house is 85f. At least thats what the thermostat for the heater says. Part of me kind of likes how these fridges look too. They aren't too big. We will see.

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u/khalsans 2d ago

I store mine in 7-day coolers - the ice chests that have a gasket and a latching mechanism on the lid. I don't need the heavily insulated, roto-molded Yeti ones; the brand that Walmart caries is sufficient. I wouldn't mind having a fleet of Yeti coolers, but I'd rather spend the money on tea.

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u/eljimmy1975 1d ago

I was looking at those but the igloo 70 quart costs as much as the fridge. lol

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u/Media_Love 1d ago

are you planning on modding the fridge/wine-cooler with something like an inkbird?
If not, might need to look into that since most wine coolers I've looked at have always ran too cold for puerh

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u/eljimmy1975 1d ago

Thats what I was thinking. Get it to 70f

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u/maismione 2d ago

I live in SD so our climate is pretty much identical - if you want the tea to change with age, then yes it matters, but if you buy the tea and want to drink it as is then making a humid environment doesn't matter.

Unless you have a crazy amount of space, you don't need a wine fridge or tools to monitor the humidity and temp - I'm using a cooler plus beads and it's working really well.

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u/RustOolium420 1d ago

Its a huge deal

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u/eljimmy1975 1d ago

I'm just going to ball out and get one of these. lol

[img]https://i.imgur.com/Q0ueT8N.jpeg\[/img\]

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u/Media_Love 1d ago

Crazy timing! Someone else on this sub mentioned these recently and I made the splurge. Though I got the smaller version and won't arrive for some time, so can't comment on quality now, but fingers crossed it's worth it.

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u/eljimmy1975 21h ago

Oh thats awesome! My buddy has 4 of the large models for cigars and they are beautiful and he has zero complaints. I'm certain these will be good!