Petra Lindqvist

The statement descriptor thing is underrated. We changed ours from an abbreviation nobody recognised to the actual product name and chargebacks dropped by more than half. People were disputing charges because they genuinely did not know what they were.

It is the water, and the move is a much bigger clue than the kettle.

Tea is 99 percent water and mineral content changes extraction dramatically. High calcium and magnesium flattens aroma and gives exactly the thin, chalky quality you describe, particularly with roasted oolong where the aromatics are delicate. New postcode, different treatment works, different cup.

Testing it costs about $3. Buy a bottle of low mineral spring water, ideally something under about 50mg/L of dissolved solids, and brew the same leaf side by side with your tap. If the bottle tastes like the tea you remember, you have your answer in ten minutes.

If it is the water, your options in ascending order of effort are a filter jug (helps mostly with chlorine), bottled low mineral water for sessions you care about, or a remineralising setup with distilled water if you get properly obsessed. Most people stop at bottled.

The kettle only matters if it holds a rolling boil far too long or if it is scaling badly and shedding. Look inside it while you are there.

Everybody misses it. You notice the kettle because you bought it. The water just arrived quietly.

That bit sits and stews at 70C and then joins your next cup. It is a bigger effect than most people believe.

Second steeps of sencha want to be shorter and cooler than people expect, not the same or longer. The leaf is already open and the cell walls are already broken, so extraction is much faster - 10 to 15 seconds at around 70C is a normal second steep, not 30 to 90.

The other half is ratio and vessel. 4g in 250ml is a dilute Western style brew, which forces long steeps, and long steeps on broken leaf pull astringency. If you want several good steeps, go to 5g in a 150ml vessel and drop the times sharply: 60 seconds, then 15, then 30, then 45.

Sencha is also small leaf and there is dust in the bottom of any pot. If you are pouring off the last few millilitres you are drinking the most concentrated and most astringent part. Pour completely dry every time.

Certified reconditioned units are the way in if you want the build without the number. Same machines, shorter warranty, considerably less money. I've had one for years and I genuinely cannot tell it from new.

Mostly leaf ratio and steep discipline, with a bit of material.

6g in 120ml is light for shou. Seven to eight grams is a more usual gongfu ratio and that extra leaf is exactly what buys you the later infusions. With a lighter ratio you compensate by steeping longer early, which strips the tea in three rounds and leaves nothing for round six.

Try 8g and keep the first three infusions genuinely short, five to eight seconds, pouring immediately. Then extend gradually: 10, 15, 20, 30, 45. If infusion four is thin, you are still steeping too long at one and two.

That said, mid grade shou honestly gives six to eight rather than fifteen. Ten plus infusions is a claim about material, not about technique.

It will look absurd and then it will fill the gaiwan when it opens. That is the correct amount of absurd.

Gaiwan, for your situation specifically.

It is one glazed vessel, it needs no seasoning, it washes in seconds, it does not hold flavour so you can go from a roasted oolong to a black tea in the same session, and it survives living in a box. A clay pot wants to be dedicated to one tea type and wants to dry properly between uses, which it will not do packed away damp in a shared kitchen.

At $40 you can have a decent porcelain gaiwan, a small pitcher and a couple of cups, which is a whole setup rather than one nice pot. The case for clay is real, but it comes later, once you know which single tea you drink enough of to dedicate a pot to.