Tea from my cafetière is cloudy and turns bitter

In short

A cafetière is a good tea vessel with two specific and fixable problems, both of them consequences of hardware designed for coffee. The mesh is far coarser than tea needs and the plunger does not end the steep, so the tea keeps extracting in the pot while sediment passes into every cup.

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. Plunging does not stop the brewing

   Over-extraction

   Check: Are you leaving the tea in the press between cups?

   Fix: The plunger compresses the leaf; it does not separate it from the water. Decant the whole thing into a second vessel as soon as it is ready. This is the single change that fixes most of the complaint, and it is the same principle as pouring a gaiwan to the last drop.

2. 2. The mesh is a coffee mesh

   Equipment

   Check: Is there silt in the bottom of every cup, and does the tea look hazy rather than clear?

   Fix: Coffee filters are sized for coffee grounds and pass a great deal of what tea sheds — especially broken leaf, CTC and deep-steamed Japanese green. Pour through a fine strainer on the way out, or restrict the press to whole-leaf teas.

3. 3. Pressing the plunger hard, which is agitation

   Agitation

   Check: Do you push it down firmly at the end?

   Fix: Crushing wet leaf forces out the most concentrated and most astringent liquid it holds, which is the same fault as squeezing a teabag against the side of a mug. Lower the plunger just far enough to hold the leaf down, and pour.

4. 4. Glass loses heat fast on a long steep

   Temperature

   Check: Is it a thin single-walled glass carafe, and is the tea a black tea or a roasted oolong?

   Fix: Preheat it and empty it before brewing. A cold glass carafe takes a substantial bite out of the water on a tea that wants boiling, which produces the thin first cup that then gets blamed on the leaf.

5. 5. It has held coffee

   Equipment

   Check: Is this the coffee press, and does the tea carry a note that is not in the leaf?

   Fix: Coffee oils persist in the mesh assembly and the plastic collar. Dismantle the filter unit completely and wash the parts separately, or dedicate a press to tea.

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.

Related problems

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

• 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.
• 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.
• My green tea tastes bitter — The cup is sharp and unpleasant, sometimes with a drying, mouth-puckering quality alongside the bitterness.
• My leaf floats on top and will not sink — Dry leaf sits on the surface in a dry-looking raft, and the tea underneath is pale long after it should have been ready.
• 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.

Sources