My Japanese green tea comes out cloudy

In short

In most cases this is the tea doing exactly what it was made to do. Deep-steamed sencha breaks down into fine particles during processing, and those particles are the source of its colour, its thickness and much of its flavour — they are not sediment and not a fault.

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. It is a deep-steamed (fukamushi) sencha

   Leaf quality

   Check: Does the label say fukamushi or fukamushicha, and is the dry leaf noticeably broken and fine?

   Fix: Nothing to fix. Cloudiness is the defining characteristic of the style, and a fukamushi that brews clear has usually been under-dosed or brewed too briefly.

2. 2. A kyusu with a very fine filter is being blamed for letting fines through

   Equipment

   Check: Are you trying to filter the particles out?

   Fix: Do not. A Japanese pot’s wide mesh filter is designed to pass fines deliberately, and removing them removes the body the tea was made to have.

3. 3. Genuinely dusty leaf at the bottom of an old packet

   Leaf qualityInferred by TeaHQ, not established

   Check: Is this the last of a packet, and is the cloudiness accompanied by a flat, dull flavour?

   Fix: Dust from handling collects at the bottom of a packet and brews harsher than the leaf above it. Cloudiness with good flavour is fukamushi; cloudiness with flat flavour is packet dust.

4. 4. Chill haze in a tea that was clear when hot

   Temperature

   Check: Did it go cloudy only after cooling or chilling?

   Fix: That is a different phenomenon entirely and applies to any tea, not just Japanese green. It resolves on rewarming and is unrelated to the leaf’s particle size.

Tea types this applies to

• Green tea

Brewing methods this applies to

• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) — The Japanese domestic approach to green tea: a moderate quantity of leaf, water well off the boil, short steeps, and two or three infusions from the same leaf with the times adjusted each time.

Related problems

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

• My water is not the temperature the kettle says — The kettle is set to 80 °C and the tea behaves as though it were much hotter or much cooler, and the same setting gives different results on different days.
• My gyokuro tastes like an expensive sencha — A costly shaded tea gives a cup that is pleasant, green and unremarkable, with none of the thick sweetness and savoury depth it was bought 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 matcha is harsh and I think it is a cooking grade — A matcha bought to drink is dull-coloured, gritty and aggressively bitter, and the tin says culinary, cooking or ingredient grade — or says nothing at all.
• My tea tastes soapy or perfumed — A soapy, floral or cosmetic quality sits over the tea and does not belong to it.

Sources