My tea arrived broken, with dust at the bottom of the packet

In short

Some breakage is unavoidable and some is a fault, and the distinction is proportion and where in the packet it sits. It also matters practically rather than only commercially: broken leaf extracts faster than whole leaf, so a packet with a large fine fraction needs shorter steeps than the same tea nominally deserves.

Likely causes, in order

Most likely first. Answer the question under each one before moving on — several of these look alike in the cup and are told apart only by what was done to the leaf.

1. 1. Ordinary settling in transit

   Leaf quality

   Check: Is there a thin layer of fines at the bottom with the body of the packet intact?

   Fix: Dry leaf abrades against itself in a moving parcel and the fine material migrates downward. A small layer at the bottom is normal and is not worth raising. Mix the packet before dosing so you are not brewing whole leaf at the top and dust at the bottom.

2. 2. A genuinely broken lot, which is a different thing

   Leaf quality

   Check: Is a substantial proportion — not a layer at the bottom but throughout — in pieces, on a tea sold and priced as whole leaf?

   Fix: That is worth raising with the seller, politely and with a photograph. A good merchant would rather know. Grade names describe particle size, and a tea sold in a whole-leaf grade that arrives broken has not been supplied as described.

3. 3. The category is supposed to be like this

   Leaf quality

   Check: Is it a deep-steamed Japanese green, a konacha, a CTC, or anything broken off a compressed cake?

   Fix: Fukamushicha is deliberately broken down by long steaming and konacha is the fines fraction sold as its own product. Neither is a fault. Breaking a cake produces fragments however carefully it is done, and a tuocha in particular resists clean separation.

4. 4. It was crushed after it arrived

   Storage

   Check: Has the packet been in a drawer, a bag, or under other things?

   Fix: A foil pouch offers no structural protection at all. Keep whole-leaf tea in a rigid container, or at least somewhere nothing rests on it.

5. 5. Whatever the cause, the brewing has to change

   Over-extraction

   Check: Has this tea started coming out bitter and drying at the timing that used to work?

   Fix: Broken leaf presents far more surface, so it gives up its most astringent fraction much faster. Cut the steep substantially — a broken lot may want half the time the whole leaf needed — before concluding the tea itself was poor.

Brewing methods this applies to

• Western brewing (teapot or mug) — A small amount of leaf in a large volume of water, steeped once for a few minutes and then strained off. The approach most English-speaking drinkers already know, and the one most teas sold in the West are made for.
• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan) — A high-leaf, low-volume, many-infusions approach: a great deal of leaf in a small vessel, steeped for seconds at a time and poured off completely, repeatedly.

Related problems

Sharing a cause category, a tea type or a brewing method with this one.

• I cannot taste the difference between my expensive tea and my cheap one — Two teas at very different prices taste much the same in the cup, and the tasting notes on both packets describe things you cannot find.
• My pu-erh tastes exactly the same as when I bought it — A cake bought several years ago to age has not noticeably changed, and it was stored carefully.
• My tea tastes sour or acidic — A tart, sharp or faintly vinegary edge sits in the cup — closer to lemon or to wine than to the bitterness or dryness tea is usually criticised for.
• My Japanese green tea tastes of seaweed or fish — A sencha, gyokuro or matcha reads as marine — seaweed at best, distinctly fishy at worst — and it is not clear whether that is the tea or a fault.
• My pu-erh or dark tea tastes sour — A sharp, tart, almost vinegary note runs through a ripe pu-erh, a sheng or another dark tea where the description promised earthy sweetness.

Sources