My sister once tried to tell my aunt that there was 0 difference between tea which had been heated up in a microwave with the tea bag already in it versus tea that had been made to my aunt’s specifications (boil the water, not in the microwave, and then put the tea in it and let it steep).
They had a vigorous disagreement about it, which ended with my sister making up two mugs of tea as a blind taste test and then presenting them to my aunt. My aunt instantly told her which one was the microwave tea and which was the proper tea. My sister admitted to the correction and from then on made the tea according to specifications.
Nope, you guys think all teas are equal and dont just have a single shelf with black tea labels and some fruit teas under it - you have a a whole damn aisle of “tea”, where caffeine is just another fruit
I was thinking more about specifying an everyday process down to insanely detailed levels.
Best making a DIN-norm out of it, to be on the safe side…
Our understanding of tea is largely crap though, that part is right… Although it is getting better, some tea culture is spilling over from you guys. :-)
I had this arguement with an international student at university.
The thing is when you’re boiling water in the kettle you’re heating all of the water to a very high temperature. When you boil it in a microwave only the water molecules near the surface are actually getting heated because they absorb the microwave energy which essentially blocks other water molecules from receiving any energy, also the cup will also absorb a lot of the microwave energy. So the only water molecules getting heated are the ones at the surface.
So in a kettle you boil bottom up which agitates the water at the bottom causing it to bubble up to the top allowing more water to be boiled at the bottom, in a microwave your boiling the water top down, which means the water at the top boils and often then just fucks off into the rest of the microwave, so you get uneven heating and therefore it tastes weird.
If you boil water in a glass cup in a microwave the glass doesn’t absorb the microwave radiation as much, and you get better heating, but that tends to break the cup.
There is a reason no one boils water in a microwave if they have a kettle. It tastes awful.
Microwaves can generally reach up to nearly 3/4" in water. If heating 8oz in a glass, that should still heat the water evenly enough, since the microwaves will still mostly pass through the glass.
Heating in shorter increments and stirring in between should help avoid breaking the glass, and heat the water more evenly. If you take the time, it should be identical to kettle boiled water. That’s why people prefer a kettle to a microwave, it’s much faster and far less effort.
But the sister also performed that experiment in the worst possible way, why did she microwave the actual tea bag?!
My sister once tried to tell my aunt that there was 0 difference between tea which had been heated up in a microwave with the tea bag already in it versus tea that had been made to my aunt’s specifications (boil the water, not in the microwave, and then put the tea in it and let it steep).
They had a vigorous disagreement about it, which ended with my sister making up two mugs of tea as a blind taste test and then presenting them to my aunt. My aunt instantly told her which one was the microwave tea and which was the proper tea. My sister admitted to the correction and from then on made the tea according to specifications.
Curious now how (if?) she makes iced tea. Steep it in cold water in the fridge or boil the water, steep the tea, then refrigerate.
TIL: When talking about tea, Brits sound like us Germans. ;-)
Nope, you guys think all teas are equal and dont just have a single shelf with black tea labels and some fruit teas under it - you have a a whole damn aisle of “tea”, where caffeine is just another fruit
I was thinking more about specifying an everyday process down to insanely detailed levels.
Best making a DIN-norm out of it, to be on the safe side…
Our understanding of tea is largely crap though, that part is right… Although it is getting better, some tea culture is spilling over from you guys. :-)
Ha. Everyone involved was American, my aunt’s just cultured above the level of most of us plebs.
ln that case I’m impressed!
I had this arguement with an international student at university.
The thing is when you’re boiling water in the kettle you’re heating all of the water to a very high temperature. When you boil it in a microwave only the water molecules near the surface are actually getting heated because they absorb the microwave energy which essentially blocks other water molecules from receiving any energy, also the cup will also absorb a lot of the microwave energy. So the only water molecules getting heated are the ones at the surface.
So in a kettle you boil bottom up which agitates the water at the bottom causing it to bubble up to the top allowing more water to be boiled at the bottom, in a microwave your boiling the water top down, which means the water at the top boils and often then just fucks off into the rest of the microwave, so you get uneven heating and therefore it tastes weird.
If you boil water in a glass cup in a microwave the glass doesn’t absorb the microwave radiation as much, and you get better heating, but that tends to break the cup.
There is a reason no one boils water in a microwave if they have a kettle. It tastes awful.
Microwaves can generally reach up to nearly 3/4" in water. If heating 8oz in a glass, that should still heat the water evenly enough, since the microwaves will still mostly pass through the glass.
Heating in shorter increments and stirring in between should help avoid breaking the glass, and heat the water more evenly. If you take the time, it should be identical to kettle boiled water. That’s why people prefer a kettle to a microwave, it’s much faster and far less effort.
But the sister also performed that experiment in the worst possible way, why did she microwave the actual tea bag?!
To make the point that it didn’t matter, because to her it did not. However she was as you noted hoist by her own petard in the end.
Your sister’s test had a pretty high α-value. It’s not surprising your tale is being told.