Tea Brewing Calculator
Enter your cups and strength; get an exact herb weight, water volume, temperature and steeping time.
Tracker
Tea Freshness Checker
Enter a purchase or pack date and get an instant freshness read-out with sensible use-by guidance.
Dried herbs don't spoil the way food does, but they do go flat. Aroma fades, colour dulls, and the cup loses its character long before any visible sign of age appears.
Enter a date and this checker tells you whether your tea is at its best, past its prime or well overdue for refreshing.
How to use it
How to use the Tea Freshness Checker
Enter the purchase date or pack date printed on your tea, select the botanical type, and the checker returns a simple freshness status with an estimated remaining window at peak quality.
- Enter the purchase or pack date (or use the "today" shortcut).
- Select the botanical category — flower, leaf, seed, root or bark.
- Read the freshness status: peak, good, fading or past best.
- See the estimated remaining window and a recommendation for what to do.
For practical guidance on extending freshness through proper storage, visit our How to Store Herbal Tea guide. To plan storage proactively for your whole collection, use the Tea Storage Planner.
The tool also reminds you of the most common causes of premature staleness for each botanical type. Knowing whether your herb is particularly sensitive to light, heat or moisture means you can take one targeted action — moving it to a darker shelf, for example — to extend its useful life without buying new storage equipment.
Questions & answers
FAQs — Tea Freshness Checker
Dried herbs that have been stored properly are generally safe well past their "best by" window — they simply taste less vibrant. If a tea smells musty, mouldy or significantly off, discard it rather than brewing it.
"Best by" refers to peak flavour, not safety. Herbal teas don't have a true expiry date in the food-safety sense when they've been kept dry and airtight. The checker's windows reflect peak-flavour guidance, not safety cut-offs.
Flowers and fine-cut leaves have more surface area and hold volatile aromatic compounds that evaporate over time. Dense roots and barks have less surface exposure and tend to hold their character longer in storage.
Yes — select "blend" as the type. The checker uses the most perishable typical ingredient category as its baseline.