cloudy Sencha

Sure. It's de rigueur with sencha. It's a sign that the tea leaves were picked young.

/Lew

Might want to try lowering both temp and time just a bit. Cloudiness is nothing to be concerned about. Though there is a point where cloudiness becomes murkiness, and that's not good.

--crymad

Hi Michael,

That clear tea liquor ist be looked upon as being quality is only valid for the US point of view. Most of the substances which cause cloudiness are considered quality in Europe or Asia.

There are many different philosophies over how long to steep and brewing temperature. I always recommend to start with 5 minutes steeping time to get what you paid for and boiling water. From there you can start to experiment until you find what you like best. Trust your own taste buds. cheers

mspotlight schrieb:

KALLE snipped-for-privacy@t-online.de/30/05 10: snipped-for-privacy@t-online.de

Here in NYC and around the country, my friends understand that a certain level of cloudiness can just as well mean freshness in a tea. Please don't generalize.

Those brewing suggestions will pretty much kill any decent green tea, white tea, or yellow tea. I suggest starting out at around 170F and adjusting up and down from there. Also, steep for one or two minutes. If you steep for five minutes, you've used too little leaf and thus compromised flavor. Those are my opinions, for what they are worth.

Michael

The differences in brew clarity have more to do with the pH of the water (before brewing) than the source of the sencha leaves. Tea cloudiness is due to flocculation, which is generally a result of pH change. Sencha leaves contain at least 7 different naturally ocurring acids that I'm aware of. Thus a slightly acidic water used for brewing will tend toward a clearer brew. Generally only distilled water has neutral acidity (ph 7.0). Normal drinking water will either be slightly acidic (below pH 7.0). Arrid (especially desert) regions have the greatest probability of having slightly alkaline (above pH 7.0) drinking water, which would be expected to produce cloudy a cloudy brew, even when the water has good clarity.

Conversely there are flavonoids in tea that can be flocculated when conjugated with protein, lipid, or carbohydrate. This is not a result of pH change, nor is it the result of a typical brewing process either.

BTW you really should put one of those low cost charcoal filters on the spigot of your kitchen sink.

I use the filtered cold water from the refrigerator's built-in dispenser, me.

stePH in cup: bulk oolong from Limbo

I've observed that squeezing the liquid from a spent teabag into the brew results in a slight degree of cloudiness. However, that does not result in any astringent off-flavors.