Tea runs down the outside when I pour

In short

Three separate faults produce the same mess: the lid gap is wrong, the pour is too slow, or the vessel is overfilled. All three are technique rather than defects, and the first is the one nobody is told about.

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. The lid gap is too wide or in the wrong place

   Technique

   Check: Is the gap facing the direction of the pour, and is it wide enough for leaf to escape?

   Fix: Slide the lid so the gap is narrow — a few millimetres — and directly under where the stream should leave. The gap is a spout you are making with your thumb, and it needs the same precision.

2. 2. Overfilled

   Technique

   Check: Was the vessel filled to the rim?

   Fix: Fill below the flare. An overfull vessel has nowhere to send the liquid except over the edge as soon as it tilts.

3. 3. Pouring too slowly or at too shallow an angle

   Technique

   Check: Does the tea creep out rather than leaving in a stream?

   Fix: Tip decisively and steeply. Surface tension pulls a slow stream back against the vessel wall, which is exactly what a dribble is.

4. 4. The vessel rim is chipped or unevenly glazed

   Equipment

   Check: Run a finger round the rim. Is there a nick or a rough patch?

   Fix: A single chip will divert the stream every time. Rotate the vessel so the pour leaves from an undamaged section, or retire it to a display shelf.

Brewing methods this applies to

• 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.
• Gongfu brewing (Yixing pot) — The same short-steep, high-leaf approach as gaiwan gongfu, carried out in a small unglazed clay pot that seasons over time and is dedicated to one tea.

Related problems

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

• My tea goes cold before I finish it — The cup is lukewarm within a few minutes, and in a gongfu session the later infusions arrive noticeably cooler than the early ones.
• My gaiwan is too hot to hold — The rim and lid become uncomfortable within seconds, the pour is rushed, and tea ends up on the tray.
• My teapot came out of the dishwasher damaged or tasting wrong — A pot or cup returns from a dishwasher cycle dulled, with faded decoration, a fine web of surface cracks, or a persistent taste that was not there before.
• 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.
• There are black spots inside my teapot or infuser — Dark speckling inside a spout, under a lid seal, in the mesh of an infuser or around the gasket of a travel bottle.

Sources