A setup that actually works
The setup that works for red tea is a sealed opaque tin, in a cupboard, holding what you will drink in three to six months. Nothing more elaborate is needed, and refrigeration is unnecessary.
Two tins are better than one. Split a 250 gram purchase in half on the day you buy it, use one, and leave the other shut. The second tin will still taste fresh when you open it, which a single large tin never does.
The container needs a real seal. A caddy with a loose lid, or a decorative tin that came with the tea, is usually not airtight, and red tea gives up aroma faster than you would expect through a gap you cannot see.
A food-grade silica sachet is a cheap addition if you live somewhere damp. Most change colour when saturated, and they can be dried in an oven and reused.
Where to put it
The best place is a cool, dry cupboard away from the kettle. That last part matters more than people think, because the steam from a boiling kettle is the single most common cause of red tea going stale at home.
An interior cupboard at floor level is more stable than a high shelf. Warm air rises, so the top of a room is the warmest part, and it is often several degrees above the floor.
Avoid the kitchen if you can, or at least avoid the parts of it near the hob and the oven. If the kitchen is your only option, use an internal cupboard on the far side of the room.
Avoid the fridge. Red tea does not need cold, and a fridge is a damp, smelly place. The only tea that belongs in there is green, and even then it has to be sealed properly.
Mistakes to skip
The most common mistake is buying too much. Red tea keeps better than most categories, which makes it easy to buy a kilo and then drink it slowly for two years. By the end it is not spoiled, but it is not good either.
The second is the loose lid or the folded bag. Red tea is rolled, not pressed, so it has a lot of surface area and it loses aroma readily through any container that is not genuinely sealed.
The third is keeping it somewhere warm. A cupboard above the oven will flatten a red tea within a season, and the damage is permanent.
And do not try to dry out red tea that has gone soft by warming it in a pan or an oven. That cooks the leaf. The result tastes flat and slightly burnt, and it is worse than the tea you started with.
Check in often
Check red tea every three or four months. Smell the dry leaf: it should be sweet and malty, sometimes with a cocoa or fruity edge depending on the origin.
If it smells of nothing much at all, the aroma has gone and it will brew flat. It is still safe to drink, and it is fine in a blend or with milk, but it is no longer what you paid for.
Check for softness too. Leaf that has gone pliable rather than brittle has taken on moisture, and the seal needs replacing.
If you find a tin at the back of a cupboard with no date on it, smell it and trust the answer. Red tea does not announce its decline, and a smell test takes two seconds.
Flat red tea is still usable. Brew it stronger, use it in a blend, or make it into iced tea. It is not spoiled, it is just not interesting, and there is no point throwing it out.
Label and rotate
Label every tin with the purchase date, and if you are organised, with the date you opened it too. The opened date is the one that matters, because that is when the clock really starts.
Then rotate: newest at the back, oldest at the front, and finish what you open. It is the same rule as a pantry, and it is the only system that reliably stops tea from ageing unnoticed.
A roll of masking tape and a pen is enough. You do not need a labelling system, you need a date, and any date is better than none.