Tea is a simple thing, it’s flavored water at its most basic level. It doesn’t have to be basic though, and it’s a pity that many never explore its full potential. If you’re motivated to drink excellent tea rather than good tea, or mediocre tea, you have to abandon the simplicity of ‘flavored water’ and start looking for tea that inspires. Once you’ve found it, you have to preserve it. Proper storage for your tea leaves is fundamentally important. They are your treasured paint. If you are someone who might use high-quality water, a clay teapot or cup, or any other various tea implements I might compare you to the painter who has a selection of tools like a palette knife, sponge, a variety of brush sizes and shapes. You can have all the tools in the world but if your paint has dried, you will not produce art.

Ultra-Violet tinted jars are the better solution to your quest for good herbal storage because they don’t only maintain the quality of the contents inside but actively plays a role in improving them. The design of the jars and the reason behind the dark purple pigment is to allow the suns Far IR energy and UV light in, while keeping harmful visible light out. Amber glass (used in medicine) and dark green-tinted glass (used for red wine bottles) are based on similar principles. Violet glass was created for herbs and natural products, mostly in an apothecary sense to allow the sun’s energy to invigorate and heal the contents inside.

These jars should be the gold standard for tea packaging. It’s really a shame they are not, at least not yet. Tea tins currently hold the spot for most popular storage medium. Let me present my best convincing argument to get you to switch: UV Glass jars are easier to maintain, they look better, they feel better, they’re better for the Earth, they’re cheaper, and most of all… They’re better for preserving your tea.

Appearance:
Purple in 2021, so hot right now. A basic but sleek tin is $14 in my city, if I want to get one dressed up with a fancy cloth or paper pattern I could be spending $25 easily. Why though? Not why are they expensive — I get that; people like flashy things. Why do we buy tins? The answer to that is mostly cultural. Our culture enjoys being manipulated by clever marketing. Machine-made tins are easily branded, easily manufactured, lightweight, usually cheap, protect against the sun, and are oxidation resistant. They come from an era that had nothing better, people were sailing around the world discovering things back then, it’s a little dated. Tins do a fine job protecting the tea and they’re re-usable to some degree depending on what tea you’re storing, but UV glass is a superior innovation.

Feel:
Smooth, heavy, glass.

Maintenance and Re-Usability:
Have you ever used tea tins for storage? For years I’ve been using them almost exclusively; not on purpose but it seems to be the most practical method. I think I have about 30 of them by now, even after giving some away. I seem to get a new one with other tea I try and I feel guilty to throw them away.

At the same time, I don’t want to use them because they’re going to corrupt whatever tea I put inside with the aroma of what was there before. Surely not everyone feels this way, but if I’m going to spend a lot of money on a high-quality tea I don’t want to worry about harming it with poor storage and scent contamination.

Jasmine Tea? Lapsang Souchong? Rose? The Raison d’être of tea is its fragrance (flavor is also fragrance). The point which I am so poorly making is that I have a tea tin that stored a smokey black tea called lapsang souchong. It sits in a box in my basement to remind me that the smell it has will never go away. Soaking it in vinegar water, scrubbing it with detergent, putting it in the dishwasher, leaving the lid off so the scent would dissipate over time — nothing worked. Now I have a $14 canister of perpetual mild smoke aroma. We’re in 2020. This shouldn’t still be a problem, these jars are a solution. Glass is easy to wash and impermeable to scent.

They’re better for the environment from not only the manufacturing aspect but from the re-usability aspect too. As a society we are moving towards a future wary of plastic and metal pollution, here’s a chance to opt-out of that world, at least a little bit (the lids are plastic). They are made of a very thick, strong glass, like a good bottle of wine. Dropping them onto tile or cement would probably break them, although I’m not sure, I’ll do a break test.

Edit: They break, it’s better not to drop them. :^)

Final words:
Look around the internet; these jars range from $20 to $90> each for the ‘medium’ 500mL size. When you play the whole-sale game, markup is king.  I’m not here to make money from jars, this is a shop for connoisseurs of tea. I bought a very large amount of these at wholesale so that I could package my teas in a way that protects them from the potential carelessness of the end consumer. I want you to love my tea, now, or 8+ months from now. I felt it was the best solution. Thank you.