The leaf clogs my strainer and the pour stops

In short

Fine leaf and fine mesh are a bad combination, and the answer is usually a coarser filter rather than a finer one. A clogged filter also means the tea sat in the vessel longer than intended, which is a second fault hiding behind the first.

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. Fine or deep-steamed leaf in a fine mesh

   Equipment

   Check: Is it fukamushi sencha, a broken-leaf black, or leaf broken off a compressed cake?

   Fix: Use a kyusu, whose wide ceramic mesh spans the whole spout wall and is built for exactly this. A finer strainer makes it worse; a larger filter area makes it better.

2. 2. Dried leaf residue from the last brew

   Equipment

   Check: Hold the mesh up to the light. Can you see through most of it, or is it partly glazed over?

   Fix: Rinse mesh immediately after use. Dried-on leaf gradually reduces flow and is far harder to remove than wet leaf; a soak in warm water with a soft brush restores it.

3. 3. Leaf packed against the filter by the pour

   Technique

   Check: Does it flow freely at first and then stop?

   Fix: Tip the vessel back briefly to let the leaf fall away, then resume. Pouring in one long tilt drags the whole bed of leaf against the filter and seals it.

4. 4. Too much leaf for the vessel

   Leaf quantity

   Check: Is the wet leaf filling most of the pot?

   Fix: There has to be somewhere for the liquid to be that is not inside the leaf bed. Reduce the dose or move to a larger vessel.

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.
• 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.

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.
• Leaves stick to the cup, the pot and my teeth — Fine leaf clings to the inside of the vessel, comes through into the cup, and ends up in the last mouthful.
• 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.
• Tea from my flask tastes stewed by mid-morning — Tea that was fine when it went into the flask is dark, thick and harshly drying an hour or two later, and worse again by lunchtime.
• 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