Would you agree that silver tea strainers are impractical? The metal is so highly conductive that after filling your cup, the strainer becomes too hot to remove by hand. In China — the home of tea — nobody seems to care about tea leaves floating around in their cuppa. Perhaps the front rows of teeth act a natural filter.
That’s why one should always let a pot brew for a few minutes for the leaves to settle at the bottom before pouring. But if one is a fusspot about the tiniest leaf crumbs getting into the cup, or has no patience for brewing, then try using a silver-coated or even a stainless-steel strainer, which conducts much less than one made of solid silver.
You are right about my compatriots taking tea with no strainer. We don’t mind floating leaves. We simply shoo them gently away with whispering eddies. Leaves are always superior when they are whole and do not consist merely of dust, as used in tea bags, which are a camouflage for inferior brews. If one had a spittoon, as did both Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping, one could chew up the leaves and spit them into the receptacle. I do admit, however, that if such an action were accompanied by loud hawking from the throat, it wouldn’t be exactly elegant. Worse still, as has happened, if a senior cadre’s set of dentures were to be ejected inadvertently.