How long doesTealast in the pantry once opened?

The USDA rates 3 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 3 separate entries under this name — bags, instant and loose — and they do not keep for the same time: Tea, loose holds 2 years outside the freezer, Tea, instant holds 2 years to 3 years. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Tea, bags, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in.

Sealed against opened

Opening the package costs 3 times here: 36 months sealed in the pantry against 12 months open in the pantry. That is a real difference and worth dating the container for, but not the collapse it becomes for the more perishable items in the same list.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA rates this item in the pantry and nowhere else, one of 84 foods of the 466 it files that way. The source also indexes it as bags, bag, instant and loose.

Tea, bags

• Unopened · in the pantry18 months to 36 months
• Once opened · in the pantry6 months to 12 months

Tea, instant

• Unopened · in the pantry2 years to 3 years
• Once opened · in the pantry6 months to 12 months

Tea, loose

• Unopened · in the pantry2 years
• Once opened · in the pantry6 months to 12 months

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.

Tea, loose, in the freezer. Matcha tea is the only tea that can be frozen after opening.

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 6 rows across the 3 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Tea, bags

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by18 months to 36 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by6 months to 12 months after the day you opened it

Tea, instant

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years to 3 years after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by6 months to 12 months after the day you opened it

Tea, loose

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by6 months to 12 months after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 6 months to 12 months in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Tea, bags keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.

Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Tea, bags past its 6 months to 12 months in the pantry once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Fizzing that should not be there, cloudiness, floating strands or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.

The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Is that a long time?

Among the 22 items the USDA files under Beverages, Tea, bags ranks 3 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Nutrition supplement drinks holds 5 years, White wine holds 2 years. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 87% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 18 months to 2 years against the 36 months of Tea, bags, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• White winekeeps 1 day in the fridge once openedup to 2 years in the pantry
• Coffeekeeps 1 month in the fridge once openedcommercial ground, non-vacuum · up to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Diet powder mixes and drink mixeskeeps 1 month in the pantry once openedup to 24 months sealed in the pantry
• Nectar, papaya, mango, guava, or guavabanakeeps 12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juicekeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Lemon juicekeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 30 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and pantry after opening, and 7 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Baking soda, Spice/spices and Textured soy protein, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the 8 shown, 2 keep longer than this one.

• Baking soda6 months in the pantry once openedup to 3 years sealed in the pantry
• Spice/spices2 years in the pantry once openedground
• Textured soy protein3 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Chocolate1 year in the pantry once opened
• Vegetable oil sprays1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Shortening6 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Chili powder2 years in the pantry once opened
• Seasoning blends1 year in the pantry once opened

The rest of the Beverages shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Beverages shelf together with 21 others, and 2 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Red wine at 5 years down to Soda at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are White wine, Coffee and Diet powder mixes and drink mixes, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Beverages the same product ranks 3 of 22. The middle of the shelf is Yuzu juice, at 12 months. 2 products on this shelf publish no window outside the freezer and stay out of the order.

• White wine2 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Coffee2 years1 month in the fridge once opened
• Diet powder mixes and drink mixes24 months1 month in the pantry once opened
• Nectar18 months12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Lemon juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Vegetable juice18 months18 months sealed in the pantry
• Coconut water12 months1 day in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

Nothing the USDA files under Beverages keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 16 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Nectar, Lime juice and Lemon juice. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.

• Nectar18 months12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Lemon juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Vegetable juice18 months18 months sealed in the pantry
• Coconut water12 months1 day in the fridge once opened
• Yuzu juice12 months3 months in the fridge once opened
• Cream liquors8 months6 months in the pantry
• Fruit Juice in cartons3 weeks8 days in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 3 separate rows under this name — records 410, 411 and 412 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 2 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Tea, bags, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: bag, bags, instant, loose

KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.