Green Tea Forum

Yamakaze · Posted: Apr 07, 2007 5:19 am Post subject: Airtight container needed for matcha?

Natsume for Matcha in Black Lacquered Wood

The fit of the lid on the natsume (link above) which I received yesterday is rather loose and would come off if turned upside down. Is this normal? I expected a tighter fit to protect the tea...as I thought that contact with open air would affect the flavor.

How does one store their matcha?

Thank you,

Amos

Kevangogh · Forum God Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 926 Location: Japan

That container is mostly used for tea ceremony purposes. As you can imagine, a lot of our customers who buy matcha are into the tea ceremony and this item is one of those things they need - it wouldn't be aesthetically pleasing to dispense the matcha from a tin can. You can store your matcha in it but I wouldn't for long periods. You can store matcha in there for a little while, no problem but for the most part you’ll want to store it in it’s canister under refrigeration.

Yamakaze · Posted: Apr 07, 2007 1:25 pm Post subject:

ahh, I see. Thank you for the advice.

Amos

Kevangogh · Forum God Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 926 Location: Japan

Another idea - put the whole container with the matcha inside of a zip lock bag?

Chip · Posted: Apr 08, 2007 3:46 am Post subject:

I had wondered this also, after seeing them in a well known Japanese Tea store in NYC recently. They are very cool...but I thought, why is the lid so loose.

This store was very upscale located right off of Park Avenue. Their kyusu selection was very limited and I almost dropped one when I saw the price...around 400 bucks...hahah...my hands were shaking as I tried to put it down very carefully. It seemed very delicate and might break if I even looked at it the wrong way. doh

By the way, their tea was good, but not on the level of freshness I find at O-Cha. Their variety was very interesting and they had a very large cooler where all their tea was stored.