How Water, Kettles and Teaware Change the Taste of Tea
As a tea company, what matters most to us is that you enjoy the teas we sell at their best. Even excellent tea cannot show its full taste and flavor if the water, kettle or teaware gets in the way. It is deeply disappointing when the qualities of a tea are lost for reasons unrelated to the leaves themselves.
When tea does not taste good, people tend to question the quality of the leaves first. Yet the cause may be the water or the equipment used to prepare it. This guide explains how to recognize these influences and choose and use water and teaware that bring out the tea's full taste and flavor.
Some comments may sound critical of particular tools or materials. However, they reflect what we have learned over many years of working with tea, testing different waters and equipment, and comparing their effects on taste and flavor. We share these findings, including specific cautions, because we want you to fully enjoy the qualities of the teas we sell.
The basic idea is simple. Do not judge each item by its price or reputation. Taste the actual combination of water, kettle and teaware you use, and once you find a combination that works, keep using it with the same water.
If Your Tea Tastes Wrong, Check the Water, Kettle and Teapot in That Order
When tea does not taste right, the tea itself is not always the cause. Quite often the water, the kettle or the teapot is to blame. Before you brew any tea, taste plain water in the following order and see where the taste changes. Let each sample cool to the same comfortable drinking temperature before you taste it.
- Drink the water as it is, without boiling it (the taste of the water itself).
- Drink the water after boiling it (the effect of boiling).
- Pour the boiled water through your teapot without any tea leaves, and drink it (the effect of the teapot).
If the water already tastes astringent or harsh before boiling, look at the water. If it gets worse after boiling, something in the boiling step is the cause. This can be the kettle, but the heat source also changes the taste, so compare kettles on the same heat source before you blame the kettle. If it gets worse only after passing through the teapot, look at the teapot.
Choosing Water
What Water Suits Tea? Hardness and Magnesium
For everyday brewing, choose moderately soft water with a hardness of about 30 to 120 mg/L and as little magnesium as possible.
Hardness changes both the body and the flavor. The higher the hardness, the bolder the water feels in the mouth, and above about 100 mg/L a dense, bold taste becomes noticeable. The body increases and the structure of the taste becomes more obvious. At the same time, the top note fades and the flavor becomes rounder. (The top note is the first flavor you notice, the one that rises to the back of the nose.) Above about 150 mg/L, the flavor is suppressed and hard to notice.
Magnesium tends to make tea astringent and bitter. Even when the hardness is in the ideal range, water with more magnesium brings out the flavor, but the taste becomes astringent and slightly bitter. This applies to soft water too.
For teas that need an intense top note, such as Phoenix Dan Cong oolong, Oriental Beauty and Darjeeling, soft water of around 30 mg/L is also an option, even if it feels slightly rough in the mouth.
Distilled water and reverse osmosis (RO) water contain no minerals at all. Tea brewed with them has a clear flavor and a distinct top note, but these waters strip away body and smoothness and emphasize bitterness, astringency and other off tastes. Professionals sometimes use them on purpose when evaluating tea, because they make faults easier to spot. They suit tea evaluation, but for everyday brewing we recommend mineral water or tap water with the chlorine removed.
Many mineral waters turn out to be astringent once you brew tea with them, so finding a suitable brand is harder than you might think. Water in Japan is generally soft. Water in Europe is said to be mostly hard, but some regions and countries are exceptions, so it is better not to assume. Water in Southeast Asia tends to be relatively soft. In our experience, the waters we have used in China, including ordinary bottled mineral water, have given excellent results with tea. This may be why a tea that tasted excellent in China sometimes tastes different at home, and why people sometimes suspect that the tea was switched.
When you try a new water, do not boil it in your usual kettle or pass it through your usual teapot. Use separate equipment. We explain why in the section on using the same water.
Remove Chlorine from Tap Water with a Filter
Tap water can make good tea once the chlorine is removed, but a filter that removes chlorine does not always make the water taste better. Both points matter when you choose a filter.
Many people imagine that city water tastes bad and country water tastes good, but when you actually compare waters, how developed an area is has little to do with how its water tastes. I sometimes brew tea with water in Tokyo and other cities at seminars, and even in Tokyo the tea tastes good as long as the water is properly treated. Boiling alone may not remove all the chlorine, and no matter how much you spend on a good teapot and good tea, residual chlorine can spoil the flavor. Chlorine disinfects water by reacting with microorganisms, and it can also react with the organic compounds responsible for the flavor of tea, altering or damaging that flavor.
The easiest way to remove chlorine is to attach a simple filter to your faucet. Water for tea is always boiled, which kills ordinary bacteria, so advanced filtration systems are unnecessary, and a simple filter costing USD 20 to 30 is enough. Among Japanese brands, there is very little difference in how effectively filters remove chlorine. However, the filter itself also changes the taste of the water, and depending on the brand and type, that change is not always an improvement. For reference, I have tried several brands and now use a Mitsubishi Cleansui filter. Brita and Panasonic also have good reputations for the taste of their filtered water. The price of a filter has nothing to do with how the water tastes.
Our store in Malaysia is a good example. We used to filter tap water with an American industrial activated carbon filter that cost about USD 150 each. It had to be replaced every one to two months, which was very costly, and tea brewed with the filtered water had even less flavor than tea brewed with the tap water before the chlorine was removed. We then tried a filter costing about USD 6 to 10 from a local DIY store, and to our surprise, the taste improved dramatically. When we brewed Raw Pu-erh, we could clearly taste a honey-like flavor we had never noticed before. However, this inexpensive filter did not remove chlorine well enough on its own. We now pass the water through the American filter first to remove the chlorine, and then through the local filter, which improves the taste. In this order, the water is free of chlorine and the tea tastes excellent. Incidentally, passing the water through the filters in the reverse order gives a different taste.
Since you cannot test a filter before buying it, I recommend choosing either a model with replaceable cartridges or an inexpensive filter that attaches directly to the faucet. Replace it regularly. Over time, corrosion products containing zinc and copper from old water pipes can accumulate on the filter's surface, gradually giving the water an astringent taste.
Other Ways to Adjust the Water
The steps above are enough for good tea. The following are for those who want to adjust the water further.
Water left to stand overnight has a longer-lasting finish than freshly drawn water, in our experience. One option is to draw your water the day before and store it in PET bottles. This is not a way to remove chlorine.
Treating water with charcoal is for advanced users. When charcoal is placed in water, some of its minerals dissolve into the water as ions, changing the taste. The effect depends heavily on the plant from which the charcoal was made. If that plant contains high levels of zinc, copper or magnesium, the water can actually taste worse. The minerals released can also make the treated water a poor match for a tetsubin (cast iron kettle), a teapot or particular teas such as Tie Guan Yin, Phoenix Dan Cong oolong and Wuyi rock tea. Charcoal treatment is high risk, high reward, and I do not recommend it unless you have the confidence and time to assess the results by tasting and make adjustments.
Choosing a Kettle and a Heat Source
We Recommend a Stainless Steel Kettle
Many people carefully choose the clay of their teapot but give little thought to the material of their kettle. If the kettle is made from an unsuitable material, even a teapot made from ideal clay cannot bring out the intended taste and flavor of the tea. Over time, minerals from the kettle build up inside the teapot and impair its performance. Eventually, no tea brewed in it tastes good.
What matters is the material that touches the water. We have tried many kinds of kettles and found stainless steel to be the safe choice. Stainless steel is an alloy, and the proportions of its metals differ by grade, so the taste of the water can differ between kettles. Some stainless steel kettles also have an inner surface made from another metal, such as aluminum or copper, and these can make the water taste worse despite the stainless steel exterior. Likewise, if a copper kettle is lined with another metal, that lining is what affects the taste.
A new stainless steel kettle does not taste good at first. Stainless steel is often thought to be neutral, but no type of stainless steel has a good effect on the taste of tea when new. It is not as bad as aluminum, copper or brass, but it usually weakens the aftertaste or adds astringency. This changes as minerals from the water build up inside. They gradually form a layer of scale that reduces the influence of the stainless steel itself, and the taste improves with continued use. Even two identical pots from the same brand can produce completely different-tasting water if one is new and the other has been used for a year. This explains why opinions on stainless steel are so divided.
At our store in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we season each new stainless steel pot by boiling water in it many times a day for about three months. Only then do we start using it to prepare tea for customers.
Because seasoning takes so long, choose a kettle that will last. The plastic lids and switches of electric kettles tend to break after a few years, and you then have to start seasoning a new kettle all over again. For this reason, we recommend an ordinary kettle heated on a ceramic heater or gas stove.
Glass, Enamel and Electric Water Boilers
Glass and enamel are often thought to be neutral in taste, but in our tests both made the water taste worse when new. Like stainless steel, they improve with use. From an aesthetic point of view, though, the mineral buildup in a glass kettle is visible as a whitish coating.
An electric water boiler from a major manufacturer such as Zojirushi or Tiger is also a surprisingly good option. Many models can keep water at 98°C. Even water freshly boiled in a kettle can cool to around 96°C by the time it is poured, so the 98°C setting is useful for brewing tea. The coated interior improves with use just as stainless steel does. We have two boilers of the same model from the same brand, and water from the older one tastes completely different from water from the new one. Do not remove the scale unless it stops the boiler from working properly.
Kettles with plastic interiors are a different matter. In our experience, they do not change the taste much, but they give off a plastic smell when the water boils, so we do not recommend them.
Aluminum, Copper, Brass and Silver Are Not Suitable for Tea
We do not recommend aluminum, copper, brass or silver for kettles. In our experience, regardless of the brand, these materials shorten the lingering aftertaste and add astringency. A long, rich aftertaste is essential to good tea. Even among teas with the same flavor, those with a longer aftertaste command higher prices. If the kettle takes away that aftertaste, it defeats the purpose of paying more for better tea.
We Do Not Recommend Clay Kettles
We do not recommend clay kettles either. Many come from Taiwan, where they are commonly used in teahouses. They can be beautiful, but in most cases the clay is not selected for its effect on the taste of tea, and the heat-resistant clays commonly used to make them can make tea taste worse. We have tested many clay kettles. Most give the water more body but also add astringency and reduce the tea's lingering aftertaste. There may be exceptions, but we have found them to be very rare.
These effects can also persist in your teapot. In our experience, after just a week of brewing tea with water boiled in a clay kettle, the teapot itself performed worse. Even after we switched back to a stainless steel kettle, tea from that teapot still tasted worse, and it took months of continued use for the teapot to recover. We believe minerals from the clay build up inside the teapot.
Choose a Tetsubin Carefully
A tetsubin is generally believed to improve the taste of water, but this is not always true. It is made of cast iron, an alloy of iron containing carbon, silicon, manganese and other elements, and their proportions vary by maker and product. Some tetsubin also have an interior coating, and the material used to seal the holes left by the mold supports, known as katamochi, varies by maker. All of these differences can affect the taste of the water. In our experience, some tetsubin reduce the lingering aftertaste or add astringency or strong bitterness instead of improving the taste. Judge the water from each tetsubin rather than assume that any tetsubin will make it taste better. A tetsubin also has to suit your teapot, which we explain in the section on combining teaware.
The Heat Source Also Changes the Water
Even with the same stainless steel or cast iron kettle, the water tastes completely different depending on the heat source: a gas flame, an induction heater, a wood stove or a ceramic heater. When you brew tea, the difference becomes even more obvious, affecting not only the taste but also how the flavor rises from the cup.
Induction heaters are now widely used, but in our experience water boiled on induction brings out less of the tea's flavor than water boiled any other way. This applies to tetsubin as well, even those sold as induction compatible. A ceramic heater also runs on electricity, yet it makes a good cup of tea. You do not need to buy one for this. For most households, a gas stove is a safe choice. In my experience, water tastes best when it is boiled over a wood or charcoal fire, but that is not easy for most people. Just be aware that the heat source changes the taste, and choose a method that suits your situation.
Teapots and Teacups
In this section, body means how widely the taste and flavor spread across the mouth, and lingering aftertaste means how long the taste and flavor continue after you swallow. They are separate qualities. A material can add body and still shorten the aftertaste, which makes the tea worse, or reduce the body while giving the tea a richer depth, which can make it more appealing.
Choosing the Material of a Teapot
Many people believe that clay teaware always makes tea taste better, but that is a myth. Clay teapots can change the taste considerably, for better or worse, because of their porous structure. A teapot made from good clay gives the tea a much deeper, lingering aftertaste. Depending on the minerals in the clay, however, it can instead weaken the aftertaste and add astringency or unpleasant tastes.
Iron ions are mainly responsible for the way ceramics improve the taste of tea. However, a larger surface area and a greater release of iron ions do not necessarily mean better taste. The other minerals in the clay are just as important. Some work with iron to improve the taste, while others counteract it, for example when the clay contains high levels of copper, zinc or manganese. Shudei (red clay) is excellent because its iron is relatively pure, but not all teaware is made from clay of this quality. Among Yixing clays (Zi Sha), Zi Ni contains substantial amounts of copper and zinc and tends to make tea astringent. Such minerals can make even plain water passed through a teapot feel rough on the tongue, and this roughness is easily mistaken for astringency from the tea itself.
Porcelain and Glass Also Change the Taste
Porcelain is often thought to be neutral, but this is also a myth. Depending on the glaze, it can make tea taste better or worse. Among commercial products, oxidation-fired porcelain with a high iron content (ivory white porcelain) is a safe choice. Materials and glazes that improve the taste are a very small minority, so choose carefully.
Glass also seems neutral, but it releases tiny amounts of metal ions. In my experience, colored glass affects the taste markedly, because glass is colored with metals. Never choose colored glass for a teapot. Crystal glass increases body, but it shortens the lingering aftertaste and adds astringency.
Porcelain and glass are fired at high temperatures, where most minerals melt. They are much less porous and have a smaller surface area, so even when they are made from a material that harms the taste, the effect is smaller than with clayware.
Taste-Test New Teaware
Do not judge teaware by its price, its famous production area or its famous potter. Whenever you get new teaware, compare it with teaware made of a different material and taste the difference. For a teapot, the sensible comparison is with tea brewed in a glass or porcelain teapot. It is quite common for tea brewed in glass to taste better than tea brewed in a ceramic teapot.
Combining Teaware: Kettles, Teapots and Cups
A kettle, a teapot or a cup that is good on its own does not always work well with the others. Different materials contain different minerals, and when they are used together, the taste may improve or their effects may offset each other. You cannot tell which until you try.
The most important distinction is how the piece was fired. Japanese ceramic teaware is fired in either an oxidizing or a reducing atmosphere. Oxidation firing favors iron in its ferric state, while reduction firing promotes its conversion to the ferrous state. In our experience, combining pieces fired in these two different ways usually adds astringency and shortens the lingering aftertaste compared with using either piece alone. There are a few exceptions, but we generally recommend avoiding this combination. This may involve an interaction between iron in different oxidation states, although the mechanism is uncertain.
The same applies to a tetsubin and a teapot. We sell Kunzan and Suzuki Morihisa tetsubin to our overseas customers. Kunzan fires its tetsubin in a low-oxygen atmosphere, a process known as reduction firing, to help prevent rust. In our experience, these tetsubin work well with reduction-fired teaware, such as Banko ware and reduction-fired Sado Mumyoi ware, but less well with oxidation-fired teaware. Suzuki Morihisa tetsubin work well with oxidation-fired teaware but are not the best match for reduction-fired teaware such as Banko ware. Satetsu tetsubin, made from iron sand, do not undergo kamayaki, or kiln baking, and generally work very well with oxidation-fired teaware.
Before using a tetsubin for tea, compare two combinations using plain water. Pass water boiled in the tetsubin through your teapot, then do the same with water boiled in a well-seasoned stainless steel kettle that you use every day. Use the same heat source and the same teapot for both, so that the kettle is the only difference. Use the tetsubin only after confirming that it improves the taste with your teapot.
Teapots and cups work the same way. In Japanese tea demonstration videos, you often see teapots, water cooling vessels and cups made from different materials used together. It looks beautiful, but such combinations can spoil the taste. For example, if you brew tea in a Sado Nosaka (natural red clay) teapot and drink it from a Banko ware cup, neither performs as well as it should. On the other hand, tea brewed in a reduction-fired Sado Mumyoi teapot and served in a Banko ware cup has less body but an exceptionally rich depth of taste. When in doubt, use cups made from the same material as the teapot, or plain porcelain or clear glass that you have confirmed does not harm the taste.
Poor combinations can also leave a lasting effect. Even pieces fired in the same way can cause this problem. For example, if a teapot is made from a material that does not improve the taste, using it with the same teacup over a long period can impair the cup's performance as well. We believe minerals carried from the teapot build up on the cup.
Glazed teaware can cause similar problems. Glazes sometimes contain minerals such as cobalt, chromium, copper and zinc to produce attractive colors during oxidation firing. These metals can weaken the taste and make the tongue feel rough. For HOJO teaware, we know how combining different pieces affects taste and flavor, so we can advise you. If you are interested, please contact us by email.
Starting to Use a Teapot
A new teapot needs only a thorough first wash. Seasoning is optional and only helps with mild roughness. A strong smell or strong astringency will not be solved by any treatment, so avoid such teaware when you choose it.
People treat a new teapot in many different ways, such as boiling it with tea leaves, ginger or even pork ribs, or leaving tea in it overnight. We do not think any of this is needed. What is needed is a good rinse. You may find white, sparkling particles inside a new teapot. This is alumina, which is used during firing to keep the lid from sticking to the body. A new teapot may still have alumina or ash inside, so rinse it well under running water to remove these along with any sand and dust.
Avoid Teaware with a Strong Smell
Some clays give teaware a very strong smell. Pottery fired at low temperatures is more likely to smell, and some pieces smell as strong as shoe polish. If you brew tea in them, the smell passes into the tea. Boiling such teaware with tea leaves or soaking it in tea may mask the smell for a while, but the smell returns once the teaware has been left unused for some time. In our recent experience, no treatment has permanently removed a strong smell from a teapot. Rather than trying to remove the smell later, avoid choosing teaware with a strong smell in the first place. We do not stock or recommend it, as we also have concerns about its effect on health.
If a New Teapot Feels Slightly Rough
If a new teapot gives the water a slightly rough taste and you want it to mellow sooner, fill it with boiling water and replace the water every day for a while. Use the same water you normally use for tea. Mild roughness can diminish with continued use, but strong astringency will not, and this does not remove a smell that comes from the clay itself.
Washing and Drying
Do not use detergent or abrasives when washing your teapot, and use the same water you brew with whenever possible. Finally, pour in boiling water to warm the teapot, discard the water, and leave the teapot with the lid off so that the moisture evaporates. If you store it with the lid on, moisture stays inside and mold can grow.
If You Want to Change the Look Faster
With use, a teapot takes on a deeper color and develops a sheen, and a matte surface gradually becomes glossy, with an almost metallic texture. Some people speed this up by pouring tea over the outside of the teapot and wiping it with a cloth. This only changes the appearance and is not part of normal care.
Can You Use One Teapot for Different Teas?
Yes. In our experience, one teapot can be used for several different teas without any problem. Some customers worry that the flavor of one tea will carry over to the next, and others believe that brewing the same tea in the same teapot lets its flavor soak into the clay and helps the teapot develop. However, tea's flavor compounds do not chemically bond with the teapot. Boiling water easily washes them away, and any that remain soon oxidize and lose their smell, just as tea left standing loses its flavor. Rinsing the teapot with boiling water after brewing and before its next use prevents flavor from carrying over.
So the flavor left behind by previous teas is not what develops a teapot. What changes a teapot over time is the minerals that build up inside it. Tea contains minerals derived from the soil and the cultivar, and these adhere to the inside of the teapot during brewing. However, using the same type of tea does not keep those minerals consistent. Their composition and amounts vary between gardens and even between sections of the same garden, so dedicating a teapot to Pu-erh tea or a particular type of oolong does not keep the minerals consistent.
Separating teapots does make sense for another purpose: developing a particular effect on the taste. In our experience, even when the teas differ in mineral composition, repeatedly brewing high-quality tea in a teapot gives plain water passed through it a softer mouthfeel and a longer-lasting aftertaste, while repeatedly brewing low-quality tea can leave even plain water tasting astringent. You can also group teas by the taste characteristics you want to develop, such as a strong body or a rich aftertaste. For example, tea from the Wuyi Mountain scenic area has a very full body, and in our experience, water passed through a teapot repeatedly used for Wuyi rock tea also gains body. Yunnan teas generally have a rich, firm taste, and water passed through a teapot used for these teas also tastes richer. If you separate your teapots, keep the quality of the teas in each reasonably consistent.
These are options for those who want to develop their teapots in different directions. They are not necessary for enjoying tea. We use the same teapots for different teas without separating them. In our experience, using the same water consistently matters more than brewing the same tea.
Once You Find a Good Combination, Keep Using the Same Water
Once you have found water, a kettle and teaware that work well together, keep using the same combination with the same water. Using the same water with your teaware is even more important than using it with one tea, and the same applies to kettles. If you keep boiling water and brewing tea with the same water, the taste improves even if you brew different teas.
Every water contains its own minerals. When you keep using one water, its minerals build up as scale on the inside of your kettle, tetsubin, electric water boiler, teapot, teacups and pitcher. If you then switch to a different water, the deposits left by the previous water start to dissolve into the new water, and the layer itself begins to change. In our experience, the tea then tastes like neither the previous water nor the new one. Going back to the original water does not bring back the original taste right away. The layer has already changed, and it takes time for it to settle again with the original water. In our experience, it takes several months before you get the taste you had before.
Do not remove the scale. The calcium carbonate in scale gives water a fuller taste and makes the flavor of tea richer. Descaling with citric acid strips away the mineral layer, and the taste becomes worse immediately.
Keep the following points in mind.
- Use the same water not only for brewing but also for washing and warming your teaware.
- If a friend brings you water that is said to taste good, never boil it in your usual kettle, tetsubin or electric water boiler. Try it with different equipment.
- When you make tea at a friend's home, use teaware kept for visits. If you use your own teaware, we recommend bringing your own water and your own kettle. Your everyday teapot, teacups and pitcher should only ever be used with your usual water.
- Second-hand teaware carries a large amount of minerals from the previous owner's water, so you will not get its proper taste for several months. We recommend pouring hot water through it regularly, even on days you do not drink tea. Teaware that someone else used for years with different water has no advantage at all. In fact, it takes several months to reset.
- If you move and your water changes, pour hot water through your teaware every day so that it gets used to the new water quickly.
Storing Tea
Keep Tea in Its Bag and Away from Light
Whatever tea you store and wherever you store it, keep it in its original bag and protect it from light.
The material of a storage container can markedly change the taste and flavor of tea. What matters is the surface that touches the leaves. In our experience, storing tea directly in a metal canister can produce a noticeable change within one or two days. We do not recommend silver or copper interiors or chrome plating, as these can increase astringency and reduce flavor. Tin performs reasonably well, but it makes the flavor slightly milder. The aluminum bags used to pack tea are laminated, with an inner layer of plastic such as polyethylene, so the tea does not touch the aluminum. HOJO's teas sold in cans are also sealed in bags inside the cans. Please keep the tea in its bag rather than emptying it into the can. We thoroughly test the effect of our packaging materials on tea, so we recommend keeping it in the bag it came in.
Ceramic jars also affect taste and flavor. Customers sometimes bring us tea that had a lovely flavor when purchased but lost it during storage. In our experience, many of these cases are caused by the ceramic jar, and when the tea is returned to a bag, the flavor gradually comes back over about a week. Not all ceramic jars cause this problem. Jars made from clay that improves taste and flavor, such as the Sado ware or Iga natural red clay we sell, are suitable. Many common brown and purple ceramic jars, however, contain zinc, copper and manganese, which spoil the taste of tea, so check the material when choosing a jar.
Light is our greatest concern because its damage cannot be reversed. Direct sunlight can seriously damage tea in as little as 30 minutes and cause a distinctive unpleasant smell. Even fluorescent light can damage tea over time, so avoid clear bags and transparent containers and use opaque aluminum laminate bags. Tea that has oxidized through exposure to moisture or air can still taste reasonably good after roasting, but neither roasting nor aging will restore tea damaged by light.
To Keep the Young Flavor: The Refrigerator
Tea ages at room temperature as long as it remains sealed without oxygen. If you want to prevent aging, as with green tea or jasmine tea, you can store the unopened, fully sealed bag in the refrigerator. When you take the bag out, leave it sealed at room temperature for 24 hours before opening it. We follow this same rule when handling tea in our company. If you open the bag while the leaves are still cold, moisture from the air condenses on them and accelerates oxidation. This is also why opened tea should never be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. Closing the bag with a clip or zipper does not provide a reliable seal.
To Age Tea: A Warm Place, Without Oxygen
The flavors we aim for when aging Pu-erh, white tea and similar teas are sweet notes of fruit, honey and dried fruit, with the tea's original character still present. To achieve this, we keep the tea unopened and sealed without oxygen in a warm place. Aging progresses faster in warm conditions and more slowly in cool ones. Storing tea with exposure to air produces a different flavor. Floral and fruity notes fade, while stale, earthy notes and flavors reminiscent of old wood become more prominent.
Aging changes the flavor, but it does not change the quality that comes from the original leaves, such as the depth and length of the aftertaste. Aged notes usually begin to develop from the third year onward, but age alone does not determine when a tea is ready to drink. What matters is whether it has developed a flavor you enjoy.