I have a box of tea that is 4 years old, is it still safe to drink? Does tea go “bad” or start to rot? (since its organic matter)
Tea is one of those products that’s “already gone bad”. Fresh tea is green tea; when it ages it turns into black tea.
I once bought a jar shaped like an elephant at a garage sale (so who knows how old it was then), and consumed the tea within it over a span of about another year. It was actually quite good.
Assuming it’s dry and thus has nothing like mold in it, it’s safe to drink.
Whether or not it tastes good is another matter - only tasting it will tell.
I have a tin of loose tea that’s at least twenty years old. When I forget to buy more Tetley before I run out, I make a pot with that tea. Tastes okay and hasn’t killed me yet.
It’s like old dried herbs. Might lose flavor or taste stale, but won’t hurt you unless it got wet and molded somehow. Even that might not hurt you, but it sure would taste horrid.
Kill you, no. But it will probably be quite stale unless you’ve by chance kept it in an airtight container. There’s also a good chance it will have taken on flavours from your cupboard, depending on whether you keep it close to spices and what have you.
I can answer this one, since I own a tea shop and I’ve researched this extensively.
As others in the thread have pointed out, tea that’s properly stored (no moisture, no excess heat) will remain dry and will not rot or go bad – and this applies to all six varieties (white, yellow, green, oolong, black, and pu-erh). I recently opened a sealed package of oolong tea that was over five years old and it tasted perfectly good.
If it’s not stored in a sealed container, it will slowly lose its aroma and flavor. This effect varies depending on the leaf. If you’re drinking cheap bagged tea with the leaves broken into tiny little pieces, then there’s a lot of leaf surface exposed to the air and it will lose aroma fast. If you’re drinking loose whole-leaf tea, it will last much longer.
If it gets moist, it can indeed start to grow mold and other nasty things, and even if stored dry it can pick up aromas and flavors from other teas, herbs and spices stored nearby, as apollonia said.
This is absolutely not correct. There is no part of tea manufacture (except possibly the fermentation of pu-erh tea) that could possibly be considered “going bad.”
The least-processed tea (“freshest” by your usage) is white tea.
Green tea leaves are either steamed (Japan) or pan-fired (China) immediately after picking to kill the enzymes that start oxidation. If stored properly, it will not change with age.
Black and oolong tea leaves are fully or partially oxidized. Note that this oxidation process is often incorrectly translated as “fermentation” from Chinese, but the oxidation of a black tea is very different from the fermentation of a pu-erh tea.
The tea that comes closest to what you’re describing is pu-erh tea (also called “dark tea”). There are two different manufacturing styles:
Sheng (a.k.a. “raw”) pu-erh is stored moist and allowed to slowly ferment as it ages. It is typically pressed into cakes and not ready to drink for at least five years. I just had a cup of 1999 sheng pu-erh yesterday, in fact.
Shu or shou pu-erh (a.k.a. “ripe” or “cooked”) gets a bacterial kick-start to the fermentation and can be consumed in a matter of months. It, also, is frequently pressed into cakes.
Unfortunately, sheng is sometimes translated into English as “green pu-erh” and shu into “black pu-erh” in English. Even so, green pu-erh never turns into black pu-erh. They are two different teas, and they are not the same as green or black tea.
Hence the scare quotes. Oxidation of a food product is usually considered to be a form of “going bad”, but in this particular case, it results in another good (arguably better, depending on tastes) product. It’s similar in this regard to yogurt, which is soured milk, or wine, which is fermented juice: Normally souring and fermenting are considered “going bad”, but there are still good products that depend on those processes.
@Gary “Wombat” Robson:
A bit off-topic, but the question has been answered, so I think this will be okay to ask:
I love the “Irish Breakfast” blend, but it’s priced out of my budget. A nearby Arab grocery store sells single-variety teas, such as Assam and Ceylon, both loose and bagged, which I can afford.
Which varieties should I blend, and in which proportions, to produce an Irish Breakfast blend (or a reasonable facsimile)?
TIA!
Is it just “traditional” tea leaves that last a long time or do other types of tea last that long too? For example in South America where I own a cottage it is very common to drink Coca tea, How long does that stuff last?
This place has reasonably good prices, and I order from all the time. I drink a lot of tea.
I’ve not tried their Irish Breakfast tea, but I think their English Breakfast is good (especially for the price): very strong, yet clear and not bitter.
Not all Irish Breakfast teas are expensive. The one I sell is an organic blend that goes for $3.00/oz (less in larger quantities), which isn’t bad for a decent organic loose leaf tea.
There is no single definition of “Irish Breakfast.” Most of the Irish Breakfast teas I’ve seen use an Indian tea for one of the components (mine uses 2nd flush Assam), and the other usually comes from one of the other parts of the former British Empire (mine uses Tanzanian). Nothing prevents someone from using Ceylon, Keemun, and Nilgiri and calling it Irish Breakfast, though.
An Irish Breakfast is typically a strong black tea blended to be good with milk. The Irish steep their teas longer than most and brew them stronger than most, so if you drink it without milk it will be too astringent for most people. If you’re blending your own, you’ll probably want CTC leaves (crushed into small pieces), which gives a stronger infusion. Assam is a great base. If they have an African black tea, that would be a great addition. If not, there’s nothing wrong with Ceylon. Start with a 50/50 blend, and tweak to your tastes.
(Since Kansas Beekeeper posted links, I’ll take that as an invitation to post a link to the Irish Breakfast from my tea shop).
How long does coca tea last?
I don’t know, sorry. My expertise is mostly in actual tea (drinks made from the Camellia sinensis plant). I don’t know much about most herbal infusions and tisanes.