Storage

Tea is highly susceptible to moisture, air and light. Even the most exquisite loose leaf tea will become unrecognisably bland and lacklustre if left in a kitchen canister without a good seal, or in an unsealed bag.

Even a small drop of water or an attack of humid air on the dry tea leaves could allow unwanted bacteria to grow and spoil the tea irredeemably. Strong heat and light will also precipitate the deterioration of your precious leaves.

Although tea doesn't really go off unless it gets wet, it will start to loose some flavour and aroma over time. The better it is stored, the longer it will stay fresh.

Yes! Some types of tea are more susceptible to oxidisation than others.

Black teas such as our Speedy English Breakfast are fully oxidised and will fare a little better than a less oxidised green tea when exposed to air. Matcha is particularly susceptible to oxidising and so we recommend keeping the tea in the pouch after opening, then popping the whole pouch in a storage tin before refrigerating.

Aromatic or scented teas such as Earl Grey or Jasmine Silver Tip may loose their aromas over time if not properly stored in an airtight tin. It's also worth noting that tea leaves are very good at absorbing aromas so whilst they might loose aroma if not stored well, they can also absorb unwanted aromas. No one wants their tea to taste like last night's curry...

The best tea storage caddies will be airtight and block out any sunlight. Although a glass storage jar might look lovely on a shelf, it won't be doing any good for your tea. The best tea storage tin should put keeping tea fresh first in its design.

Having said this, our retail range of tea tins is adorned with beautiful individual designs created especially for us - from wavy colours on our well being range (designed by Yehrin Tong) to various labels with patterns inspired by pieces in the V&A museum (designed by WaterMill London).

We also suggest using the smallest size container you can. Empty space in a tin = more oxygen. We offer different sizes of tin to suit different volumes of tea but if you get a big 1kg resealable bag of loose leaf tea you can still use this to fill up one of our small storage canisters.

We try to keep the cost of our containers down to help make it easier for you to look after your tea. It's a small price to pay for a delicious cup of tea.

Our tea tins are made of tinplate (steel with a thin layer of tin). We use this metal because it's durable and provides a good oxygen barrier, whilst the thin layer of tin helps protect against rust to make it safer for food storage.

Note: the steel used in our storage tins is not sourced from Russia.

How you like to organise your tea caddies is up to you! But we do have a couple of pointers on helping keep your tea fresh:

• Always use up all the tea in the tin before filling up with more tea to avoid layering fresh tea ontop of older tea.
• Careful saving your tea for 'best'. We appreciate you might have a particularly precious tea you want to savour but try use up any opened tea within 6 months for the best flavour.
• If like us, you have a huge collection of loose leaf teas and herbs we like to organise our teas by category so we always know where to find what we're looking for! A wall of tea tins makes a fun decorative statement in your kitchen or pantry.
• If you keep your tins in a box or drawer we recommend popping a sticker on top of the lid too.