An American scientist has sparked a trans-Atlantic tempest in a teapot by offering Britain advice on its favorite hot beverage.
Bryn Mawr College chemistry professor Michelle Francl says one of the keys to a perfect cup of tea is a pinch of salt. The tip is included in Francl’s book “Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea,” published Wednesday by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Not since the Boston Tea Party has mixing tea with salt water roiled the Anglo-American relationship so much.
The salt suggestion drew howls of outrage from tea-lovers in Britain, where popular stereotype sees Americans as coffee-swilling boors who make tea, if at all, in the microwave.
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The U.S. Embassy in London intervened in the brewing storm with a social media post reassuring “the good people of the U.K. that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain’s national drink is not official United States policy.”
Ok.
So make Tea in the microwave with plenty of salt.
I got it. Brits, you good? Boffins? Cheerio, pip, pip?
Kinda surprised this is just now coming up for tea drinkers. 3rd wave coffee nerds have been using saline solution to cut down on bitter flavors for like a decade now.
Fun fact, the modern tea bag was invented by an American. We really know how to throw a tea party.
“agitating the bag”
If you want to create a better cup of tea at least begin with tea leaves, not tea bags.
I could not agree more. However, a lot of tea drinkers love their dust filled paper bags.
Care to elaborate? I don’t see how having the leaves in a bag is inferior to having them loose
A decent guide to tea grades here. Even with higher end teabags, any tea dust created (e.g. if the teabag gets squashed) gets trapped inside the bag. The tea dust makes for a more bitter cup.
With very few exceptions the tea used in teabags is of much lower quality than loose leaf tea. Often it´s just fannings and dust, swept from the floor.
I’ll just assume my bro Steven Smith is one of those exceptions.
Sure looks like it.
Somehow I doubt tea companies are sweeping dust off the floor and putting it in tea bags. C’mon.
I am not an expert but I have read about such practices again and again over the years. It´s also common knowledge that food companies do much, much worse things.
Dust is what remains after the tea has passed through the grading machine. It is powdery in texture and is often swept off the floor. Dust is considered the lowest grade of tea.
Tea in bags is pulverized while loose leaf tends to be intact leaves. It changes the flavor.
Ironically the English don’t really know how to make tea. Then dump hot water on a tea bag then immediately throw on cold milk, making it impossible to actually brew.
No one does that.
Some people even put the milk in first.
lol the BBC has literally aired specials on this subject
What’s wrong with the microwave? Heat is heat (except the 1995 movie which has little to do with heat or thermodynamics at all).
You could easily over steep it if you microwave it with the bag in it, but if you’re just boiling water it shouldn’t make a difference, other than being inefficient vs a kettle.
I don’t think I would steep it in the microwave, but I could see myself boiling or reheating tea in it.
Don’t knock it til you try it. Cold water and bag goes in a mug in microwave. 1-2 mins later tea comes out. No forgetting about hot water or letting things cool and forgetting about it. I dont care if it’s correct. It tastes good to me.
Isn’t microwaving the bag bad? Wouldn’t it add microplastics and such?
I had no idea but a quick search shows most teabags have plastics.
Not sure if there’s a difference between microwaving a bag in water or letting a bag sit in hot water
It overheats it.
The water in a microwave when boiled forms small pockets of gaseous water whose temperature is more than 100 deg C, so it basically cooks the guts out of the tea.
You boil the water in the microwave. Then pour it. Not with the leaves or the pouch in.
Whats next britain giving advice on how to most effictivly shoot ur fellow shoolchildren?
I think you’re doing pretty well in that regard without outside help.
Therr is always room for improvement
One joke
It’ll stop being funny when it stops being true
There is a reason everyone calls them the worlds greatest 3rd world country. They are always making it the greatest just never specified at what.
Step 1, grab some tea
Step 2, throw it the fuck out
Step 3, make coffeeI live a few hours from the nearest harbor. will a lake work?
Im a few hours away from Boston too, lets have a tea party!
