My tea is drying and puckering rather than bitter

In short

Astringency is a tactile sensation, not a taste, and it has different causes from bitterness. Advice that runs the two together fixes one and leaves the other, which is why this has its own page.

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. Broken or small-particle leaf

   Leaf quality

   Check: Is the leaf broken, dusty or from a bag rather than whole? Look at what is left after brewing.

   Fix: More exposed surface releases polyphenols faster. Shorten the steep considerably — a broken leaf may want half the time a whole leaf needs — or move to whole leaf.

2. 2. Agitation during the steep

   Agitation

   Check: Do you stir the pot, jiggle the infuser, or squeeze the bag against the side of the mug?

   Fix: Stop doing all three. Squeezing a bag in particular forces out the most concentrated and most astringent liquid held in the leaf.

3. 3. Too much leaf rather than too long a steep

   Leaf quantity

   Check: Is the cup also strong and full-flavoured, rather than harsh and hollow?

   Fix: If it tastes strong AND drying, reduce the leaf. If it tastes hollow AND drying, the problem is over-extraction of too little leaf, and the fix is the opposite.

4. 4. Very hard water

   Water chemistryInferred by TeaHQ, not established

   Check: Do you live in a hard-water area, and is there a film on the surface of the cup?

   Fix: Try filtered water. Hard water flattens aroma and can leave a surface film that reads as a rough mouthfeel.

Tea types this applies to

• Black tea
• Green 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.
• Tea bag brewing — Pre-portioned tea in a permeable bag. The format was an accident of early twentieth-century sampling practice and became the dominant way tea is drunk worldwide, because it removes every decision except how long to leave it in.

Guides covering this

• Bitterness vs astringency explained — One is a taste and one is a physical sensation. They have different causes and different fixes, and almost all confusing tea advice comes from treating them as one thing.
• Agitation, and how you pour — Movement in the vessel changes how fast tea extracts, independently of time and temperature. It is the variable nobody adjusts deliberately and everybody varies accidentally.
• Leaf size, particle size and extraction rate — Break a leaf and you multiply the surface the water can work on. That single geometric fact explains most of the difference between whole leaf, broken leaf, dust and powder.
• Astringency is something you feel, not something you taste — Bitterness is registered by the tongue as a taste. Astringency is a physical sensation across the whole mouth — a drying, tightening, roughening. They have different causes, different fixes, and confusing them makes most tea troubleshooting advice fail.
• “Strong” tea means four different things — The word does duty for concentration, extraction, astringency and caffeine content, which vary independently. A great deal of brewing advice is unusable because it does not say which one is meant.
• How brewing changes which descriptors appear — The same leaf produces different tasting notes at different temperatures, ratios and times, and the differences are not small. A note without its parameters describes an event rather than a tea, and knowing which lever moves which descriptor is most of practical tasting.
• Does steeping longer make tea stronger? — It makes it more extracted, which is not the same thing and is frequently the opposite of what the drinker wanted. Strength is set by how much leaf is in the pot; time decides which compounds you collect and in what order.

Related problems

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

• My green tea tastes flat and looks dark in this house — A delicate green tea that tasted bright elsewhere comes out dull and heavy here, with a darker, browner liquor than it should have and none of its aroma.
• My tea disappears when I add milk — A tea that tasted fine on its own becomes a pale, vaguely sweet milk drink with no tea character left in it.
• My tea gets drier and harsher as it cools — The first mouthful is balanced and the last one, several minutes later, grips the tongue and feels rough — from the same cup, with nothing added.
• 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 is an oily film on the surface of my tea — An iridescent or dull skin sits on the surface of a cup or pot, breaking into patches when disturbed and clinging to the side as the level drops.

Sources