How to SAVE STALE TEA - Re-Roasting your Oolongs and other tea types.

You may want to periodically roast your Oolongs during its storage and ageing in order to drive away moisture. But can this work for other tea types and how exactly do you roast your teas using home methods.
I show some of the ways that I drive away staleness and moisture in small amounts of tea with a refresher roasting. If you are happy with the results then go ahead and repeat the roasting for your whole batch of tea but make sure that you get your parameters right before committing!
Recommended Parameters:
Temperature: 55c/135F - 75c/165F
Time: Depends of quantity and shape but start at 15-30 minutes for strip to and 1.5 hours for ball rolled tea.
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[@BlakeP16]

It’s so interesting that you can bring a tea back from the brink of death.

[@Sirnkissako]

Thank you so much. I am 75 and I have been drinking tea all my life. I have been living in Kyoto for the past 45 years and is a master of tea ceremony in the Urasenke style with hundreds of students in Europe and hundreds in China as well as many others . Even though I am drinking a lot of Matcha, I also enjoy drinking Chinese teas. I have in storage more Chinese teas than I can possibly drink in my lifetime. I have a ceramic Japanese tea roaster that I occasionally use much in the way you have described. Please keep up the very good work you are doing.

[@beth.7]

19:52 ff. 🤣🤣😂 Perfect! Thank you, Don, for this method of bamboozling oneself and a very entertaining couple of seconds!

[@GilbertBarrierLaDanseduSilence]

Not into re-roasting right now but always nice to see new experiences well detailed

[@leighcurrier3077]

So helpful! Many thanks! Someone who loves tea as you do, is a true comrade! Peace and love from northern Ontario Canada.

[@forteandblues]

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Wow, so British lol. You should have your tea delivered by nannies with flying umbrellas

[@beth.7]

🤣 I might keep the nanny, too!

[@sambyanderson]

Great video! Would love to see a tour of your tea storage!

[@flowerchild777]

You can do this with herbs and such from your pantry as well. I found this out about a year and a half ago. Very helpful information👍

[@beth.7]

Thanks, this has been very helpful and practical. Please keep them coming! I've liked especially the information about how to recognize the shifts toward undesirable flavour notes. I've been re-roasting tea on an off and I use the cowboy-method. I use a hojicha roaster, however. It works much better than the pan, I used before. What I like about the hojicha roaster, is that you can check on the progress of the roasting by smell, and that you can roast very small batches and move them around while you are roasting.

[@slaxxer113]

How come I found out one of my green teas has been oxidized too much over time literally 2 days ago and now this video is up. Thank you lol

[@DijaVlogsGames]

Wouldn’t have thought about doing this to green teas. Interesting.

[@gitmoholliday5764]

I tried to make my own Genmai and it was quite reasonable but I think the rice should be slightly soaked in water before roasting ??

[@swedensilke7959]

A big question with this is if a good Dehydrator would be a good option where you have great control often on temp?

[@OfficiallySarabi]

I pan roast a lot of whole spices, nuts, and flour so i think that may actually be my preferred method haha. I haven't tried reroasting yet but now I might

[@OfficiallySarabi]

I should note that I do know we're looking for far less change with tea leaves than spices.

[@ongoingmartin]

I enjoy roasting ball oolong, but have never considered re-roasts for strip oolong. Simply never occurred to me. Looks like that will change soon! 😁

[@TheHeraldOfChange]

Hey Don, great vid. I have a 40 y.o. loose leaf ripe pu'er that has suffered from bad storage in HK and Kunming. Other canisters of the same tee, others have reported as being really, really good tea. Unfortunately, my sample is not. Basically it smells and tastes like "swamp water." Can I rescue it, revive it, improve it, change it, to something decent by re-roasting it? As for a roasting oven, how about a dehydrator?

[@MeiLeaf]

You can certainly try and it will probably improve it but if the taste is due to funky fermentation then that is unlikely to disappear. Yes, dehydrators can work I assume although I have never tried myself.

[@Currywurst-zo8oo]

You are going to destroy the enzymes in the leaves. I wont age anymore after roasting it so you will have to consume it relatively quickly.

[@TheHeraldOfChange]

@@Currywurst-zo8oo I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate it. Do you think its possible, there would still be enzyme activity in the leaves, considering its been aged for about 40 years? Personally I have no idea. I bought it as an old Pu'er hoping it'd be something special, and that it would help me appreciate pu'er better. Unfortunately, it wasn't and probably didn't, in my estimation.

[@Currywurst-zo8oo]

@@TheHeraldOfChange Oh, I misread. I thought the Pu Ehr was only 4 years old. With 40 years there probably isnt much activity left and even if it were it would be barely noticeable because of all the aging before. A properly stored 40 year old Pu Erh will be extremely expensive. Everything cheap is basicaly just bad tea that was forgotten somewhere.

[@jwsc9578]

Could you use coffee roaster?

[@Ishanusharma]

floating cups WoW

[@tgkhee8548]

Any idea on how this method would impact japanese greens tea? It would be interesting to know what would happen since japanese green don't go through roasting process.

[@Currywurst-zo8oo]

Japanese tea is heated at the end of processing at a low temperature like 70°C. Heating it again to a higher temperature can bring out a lot of fruity notes in an otherwise flavourless and stale tea. You probably have to freshly roast the tea before drinking because any flavour you create is going to disappear very quickly. You dont try to refresh anything instead you transform certain compounds into others. If you roast it for a little longer it basically becomes Houjicha that has a mild roasted flavour.

[@tendingtropic7778]

thanks, a lot of hassle, so I will just drink my teas within 5 years ;-)

[@steeping]

I tried re-roasting some old longjing a couple times... was not a fan.

[@forteandblues]

Just trying to help you with this comment not be a jerk. It’s pronounced my-yard not may-lard for the reaction talking about the caramelization of proteins.

[@alexcherryblossom1]

No mate just bbq it and sauce it up too

[@solaris100]

1 Person hates roasting tea...