Tea Fragements/Dust In Otherwise Good Tea? Why?

[beforewisdom]

I've had some good quality Japanese green tea lately where I've gotten bits of tea in my cup, despite the tea posts using strainers.

Why does this happen?

I'm guessing I need to be better about cleaning out my pot and strainer

Any other reasons?

I thought only poor quality tea had fragments and tea dust with it.

[debunix]

I've had some good quality Japanese green tea lately where I've gotten bits of tea in my cup, despite the tea posts using strainers.

Why does this happen?

I'm guessing I need to be better about cleaning out my pot and strainer

Any other reasons?

I thought only poor quality tea had fragments and tea dust with it.

Tea gets tumbled about between the producer/packager and you, and some crumbling of initially intact leaves is inevitable--even the rolled leaves of oolongs or gunpowder can be crushed a bit with less than respectful treatment.

[Griff]

I thought only poor quality tea had fragments and tea dust with it.

When it comes to Japanese tea, I don't think poor quality and tea fragments are synonymous. From my own experiences, high levels of crumbliness is a common attribute with deep steamed sencha, regardless of quality.

As for the amount of leaf passing through even extremely fine filters, I blame voodoo witchcraft.

[daidokorocha]

In Japan, in 2007 Coca-Cola released a bottled tea that had tea sediment in it. People reacted strongly to this because it imitates the familiar tea from brewing. Thus, it was considered "premium". Since then, bottled tea companies have been redoing their formulas or releasing alternate lines featuring either cloudy tea or attempting to make the flavor "bolder". Definitely, you will never really escape tea sediment with Japanese greens. They are not full leaves and the more they are steamed the more the leaf crumbles. You will typically always have a layer of sediment at the bottom. Like the Coca-Cola incident shows, this is a marker of what Japanese tea is. When I see the sediment at the bottom of my cup or my pot, I feel warmth and feelings that go beyond tea as I think of home and all the associations I have with it and I come to be comfortable. Sediment is an integral part of Japanese tea. It is also delicious! Drink up!

[Drax]

And especially if it's a fukamushi, it'll be impossible to have a 'clean' brew...