Plastics Errs and Oops

You have seen this before.

Right, so let us see the tea writer starting off the new year on a wrong foot. I killed a tea. Not much tea, but still, some, and cannot be replaced. Like all the mistakes I regularly make, I try to learn something even if doomed to repeat. 

So what happened? We have had winter and -25C temperatures for several weeks now, and I ventured onto my unheated porch to find I left a tea out there since last summer. Nothing important, readers will recognize this last bit of 2012 CNNP Fuzhuan brick tea I bought from Jay in Hong Kong. This is what's left of the 1 kilo brick after taking a year to drink most of it in 2021. I stopped with a small piece left to serve as a reference for other teas in the future. Last summer we had a warm, humid season after two droughty summers when I didn't porch store my tea. So when we finally got a good tea fermenting summer, I set out only my Fu bricks and also Houde's drinker bricks just to acclimatize. I brought in my other teas, but overlooked this bit of brick sitting atop a file cabinet.

Adding a damp square
of paper towelling.

I keep dreaming of Fu Zhuan covered with crusty, zesty yellow flowers. But my tea shows how dry my climate really is outside of a few summer months. The bit of tea was stored in a loose plastic wrap. You can see how the erotium crystatum fungi is just little powdery bits now. After months and months untended on a now dry and freezing cold porch, the tea itself has more problems. I decided to try and revive it by adding a damp bit of toweling paper into a stainless steel container and put the whole thing in a warm place.

The flowers have sprouted back, which shows that the fungi survives in dry spore form and with dehydration and warmth will return. Fu brick is not strong like puerh tea, and once browned with age the broth is soothing rather than harsh. But this tea is just flat with hardly any flavor. 

Better?

I have seen bags of dried eurotium crystatum for sale on various websites. If I had a really humid climate, I could feel confident in ordering dried spores, knowing they revive easily. I could add them to my tea steeping, and probably with more flavorful results than trying to "grow" them. Kinda cool to know that. 

But now this tea is basically flavorless, so I can toss it or drink it. The life of the tea was 4 years in Hong Kong, and then 10 years with me. The tea initially was green, I think the fully browned tea here reflects a realistic purchase of tea which gets a good start in a humid place before importing it to store. 

Browned and brewed.

To store, as in, not on your porch during winter. 

Another thought that emerged from the incident was the plastic wrap I had around the tea. More and more articles are emerging with the dangers microplastics may have to our bodies over time. How do I feel about storing in plastic? 

Not sure I have a firm thought. First, one must honor our Yunnan (and elsewhere) tea producers who have stored tea wrapped mainly in bamboo and paper materials. These are ideal and most healthy materials for aging in warm, moist climates. But in cold, dry climates, we need other options. My solution has been the type of ceramic farm crocks that my family has used for generations to ferment cabbage. 

Plastic is a stabilizing material that can prevent interactions with the environment, and slow or altogether stop aging. Heating plastic is said to release more micro particles than cold plastic. Older vintage plastics apparently are more "shedded" than newer plastics. 

The written articles on microplastics are everywhere, but they aren't fully definitive. I myself have recommended wrapping in plastic to preserve fully aged tea that needs no further aging. Puerh teas are often sold in shrink wrap over the paper wrapper in part to keep them from absorbing scents in tea shops. Plastic wrap may be a strategy for online selling, to keep the tea looking as close to the photos as possible. Some tea writers prefer to store in plastic. 

I am still a little ambivalent on plastic. After all, I'm drinking a tea that might contain far worse chemicals, in some cases. Consensus seems to emerge on most things puerh, the small observations and mistakes still matter for everyone. I like to hear about these observations more than all the debates. I need some alternatives to plastic wrap. Tins are ok, but they are drying, and containers will still need controls with so much air. 

Happy New Year! 🐎