HK storage tells — physical workshop

A methodical exploration

The workshop opens at 11:00 with a quiet cup of young Shēng Pǔ’ěr (生普洱) — bright and astringent, to refresh the palate and set a baseline before the deep dive into aged material. Liu Shenyang explains that Hong Kong storage is not a single condition but a spectrum of humidity, temperature, and microbial environment, each leaving a distinct fingerprint on the tea.

Participants gather around a long table laid with 10 reference cakes: some wrapped in brittle, stained paper; others with clean wrappers but darker tea leaves showing through. The first exercise is tactile — handling the cakes without opening, feeling the compression, noting the crinkle of cellophane, and smelling the wrapper. A checklist provided guides you to record impressions: earthy warehouse notes, camphor, dried fruit, or the faint mustiness of traditional dry storage.

After the tactile round, we break samples from all 10 cakes. Under Liu Shenyang’s guidance, each participant brews small quantities in a gaiwan and pours into tasting cups. We examine the liquor’s colour: from amber for 15-year-old cakes to deep ruby-red for 40-year-old material. Aroma gets meticulous attention — smelling the empty cup, the wet leaves, and the liquor separately, comparing the notes to the checklist. You learn to distinguish the rich, mushroom-wood character of traditional HK storage (often called ‘warehouse flavour’) from the cleaner, spicier profile of lightly humidified storage.

A break mid-session offers aged white tea and light snacks, allowing the palate to reset. Then the group discusses findings, sharing which cakes they identified correctly and where ambiguities arose. Liu Shenyang shares stories from his decades of sourcing in Hong Kong warehouses, illustrating how a slight shift in storage location — floor, middle shelf, near a ventilator — can completely change a tea’s trajectory.

The workshop concludes with a collective tasting of a single exceptional 1980s HK-stored cake, decoding its notes together. Participants leave with a tasting journal, a sachet of tea samples to re-evaluate at home, and a small aroma kit to continue training their nose.

Members of tea.community can register with a discount code. For those wanting more, tea.school hosts a full archive on storage science, and puerh.app catalogue offers detailed provenance histories of many of the teas sampled today.

What you get

• Access to 10 reference vintage puerh cakes spanning different storage conditions and decades.

• A tactile evaluation checklist and aroma wheel created by Liu Shenyang for HK storage identification.

• A personal tasting journal with guided notes for each tea sampled.

• Curated reading list on Hong Kong storage history, hosted on tea.school.

• 10% discount voucher for future tea purchases at shop.thetea.app.

• A sachet of workshop teas to re-taste at home (approx. 30 g of aged raw material).

• Invitation to a follow-up online tasting session with Liu Shenyang via tea.community.

Logistics

• Where — Saint Petersburg studio, full address provided upon booking; a 10-minute walk from Nevsky Prospekt metro.

• When — 28 September 2026, 11:00–14:00 local time.

• Dress — Comfortable indoor clothing; please avoid strong perfumes and scented lotions that interfere with tea aroma.

• Food — Light snacks, fresh fruit, and spring water provided. We recommend eating a light breakfast beforehand.

• Accessibility — Ground floor studio with a step-free entrance; accessible toilet.

• Language — Workshop conducted in English and Russian.

• Weather — Late September in Saint Petersburg averages 8–12 °C; dress in layers for the commute.

• Kit included — Tasting journal, aroma kit, tea samples, and a cloth tea mat.