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Lady tasting tea

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Re: Lady tasting tea

#21

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

lr4444lr wrote: post #8

Wasn't this demonstrated by the Royal Chemical Society that pouring the milk into the tea creates a detectable trace of caramelization of the milk sugar or protein denaturation due to the momentary high temperature on the milk while the tea:milk ratio was very high at the initial pour? https://www.vahdam.com/blogs/tea-us/milk-first-or-last-the-s...

I've always preferred the taste of milk-first, and it never crossed my mind that the difference wasn't noticeable.

I didn't realise it was a class marker until someone described it as "a bit MBT" (milk before tea.)

Apparently where they were from this subtle social shading really mattered.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#22

Post by ahazred8ta »

mmh0000 wrote: post #6

Of course, any article mentioning tea, must include a reference to ISO 3103 — A Standardized Method for Brewing Tea[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103

producing "a cupful of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea" - h2g2

Re: Lady tasting tea

#23

Post by af3d »

zug_zug wrote: post #9

> Thus, if and only if the lady properly categorized all 8 cups was Fisher willing to reject the null hypothesis – effectively acknowledging the lady's ability at a 1.4% significance level (but without quantifying her ability). Important to realize though, that failure to categorize all 8 doesn't prove anything either. It just means this one experiment isn't conclusive in itself (at 95% confidence). It's good to be a…

The probability of guessing all eight correctly is 0.5^8 (or roughly 0.39%). The chances of such a thing happening by mere fluke are quite slim. Now personally, I would have preferred a few more glasses to be even more certain, but hey, for all practical purposes those results do seem fairly credible.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#24

Post by nicbou »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #21
lr4444lr wrote: post #8

Wasn't this demonstrated by the Royal Chemical Society that pouring the milk into the tea creates a detectable trace of caramelization of the milk sugar or protein denaturation due to the momentary high temperature on the milk while the tea:milk ratio was very high at the initial pour? https://www.vahdam.com/blogs/tea-us/milk-first-or-last-the-s...

I've always preferred the taste of milk-first, and it never crossed my mind that the difference wasn't noticeable. I didn't realise it was a class marker until someone described it as "a bit MBT" (milk before tea.) Apparently where they were from this subtle social shading really mattered.

Apparently milk before tea is lower class because poor people would want to avoid cracking low quality porcelain with hot tea. Fascinating!

Re: Lady tasting tea

#25

Post by lisper »

lr4444lr wrote: post #8

Wasn't this demonstrated by the Royal Chemical Society that pouring the milk into the tea creates a detectable trace of caramelization of the milk sugar or protein denaturation due to the momentary high temperature on the milk while the tea:milk ratio was very high at the initial pour? https://www.vahdam.com/blogs/tea-us/milk-first-or-last-the-s...

Why wouldn’t the same thing happen when the milk first hits the tea?

Id anything I would think there should be more caramelization in the TBM case because there should be more heat in the larger volume of tea and so the milk should get hotter at the point of initial contact.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#26

Post by YZF »

zug_zug wrote: post #10

To me when I first came across this in college it was fascinating. I think any stem field should be taught about these statistical methods. The power of being able to put an objective answer on any personal claim (e.g. mint gives me a headache) with statistics & a blind design is a very powerful tool to approach fields where our science just isn't good yet (psychology, health, etc).

I'm pretty sure they are taught this. There's a different between taught and having an in-depth understanding of what makes a good experiment.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#28

Post by dpassens »

lisper wrote: post #25
lr4444lr wrote: post #8

Wasn't this demonstrated by the Royal Chemical Society that pouring the milk into the tea creates a detectable trace of caramelization of the milk sugar or protein denaturation due to the momentary high temperature on the milk while the tea:milk ratio was very high at the initial pour? https://www.vahdam.com/blogs/tea-us/milk-first-or-last-the-s...

Why wouldn’t the same thing happen when the milk first hits the tea? Id anything I would think there should be more caramelization in the TBM case because there should be more heat in the larger volume of tea and so the milk should get hotter at the point of initial contact.

That's exactly what was found and what GP said.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#29

Post by globular-toast »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #21
lr4444lr wrote: post #8

Wasn't this demonstrated by the Royal Chemical Society that pouring the milk into the tea creates a detectable trace of caramelization of the milk sugar or protein denaturation due to the momentary high temperature on the milk while the tea:milk ratio was very high at the initial pour? https://www.vahdam.com/blogs/tea-us/milk-first-or-last-the-s...

I've always preferred the taste of milk-first, and it never crossed my mind that the difference wasn't noticeable. I didn't realise it was a class marker until someone described it as "a bit MBT" (milk before tea.) Apparently where they were from this subtle social shading really mattered.

Milk before tea cannot still be a class marker, though. To do milk before tea necessitates the use of a teapot but I would say using a teapot makes one seem more posh than poor.

However, I do wonder whether some people are confused and think milk first means the teabag goes into the milk. This would explain why some people seem inexplicably horrified by it.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#30

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

nicbou wrote: post #24
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always preferred the taste of milk-first, and it never crossed my mind that the difference wasn't noticeable. I didn't realise it was a class marker until someone described it as "a bit MBT" (milk before tea.) Apparently where they were from this subtle social shading really mattered.

Apparently milk before tea is lower class because poor people would want to avoid cracking low quality porcelain with hot tea. Fascinating!

Was that a genuine concern? Boiling water has a fixed maximum temperature. Not sure that room temp->90C is all that different from room temp to 100C for ceramic.
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