You can brew your tea extremely strong, and get a hallucinogenic prisoner's drink called "Chifir"
Tea Chemistry (1997)
31–39 of 39 posts
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The BBC has come up with an excellent short documentary on how to perform proper tea preparation [1]. Essentially the hot water need to be boiling hot (100 degree celcius) and leave it brewing for a minimum 4 minutes after pouring into a cup of tea. From personal experiences, if you want to make good chai masala (or spicy milk tea) you need to keep it in boiling water for considerable amount of time (like cooking on…
Science has shifted, depending on the discipline, from a colonial universalism perspective to one that accepts that “the truth” varies and can be a local phenomenon. I have a hard time buying into a prescriptive tea-making procedure. For example, you can heat up your temperature to boiling, but by the time you pour it, it will likely be down to the low to mid 90s. There’s other factors such as the material of the mug…
One thing I noticed is that the water matters.
I noted that when visiting my sister down in the Bay Area, I had to steep for quite a bit less time before the bitter tannins would start creeping in. Like 1.5-2 mins tops for cheap PG Tips. But that same tea up north could sit for 3-4 minutes before the bitter tannins would creep in.
It was a marked difference so there are obviously some confounding factors. I suspect the water chemistry matters a fair amount.
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#33Worth mentioning that though tea does contain polyphenols and flavinoids which are good for us (and l-theanine and caffeine which we enjoy introducing to our nervous systems), it's had a much bigger impact on health historically because it required us to heat water to boiling (or near boiling, depending on what kind of tea you're making). Also, can't miss a chance to spice things up with the mention of adding salt to…
When I switched to black coffee I read that putting a tiny bit of salt in cuts the bitterness. It works and the amount of salt needed is so small that you don't taste it, less than a pinch.
Likewise, it enhances things like smoothies, martinis, and damn near anything with bitterness or sweetness in their profiles, generally added at levels that are not perceptible as "salty".
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays—it is economical, and one can drink it without milk—but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea." These are some of the worst tea-making tip I've…
'China tea', yeah because there's no difference between, say, any given wulong and pu'er.
Also not the point.
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must be from USA. In Europe you give tea even to toddlers and they sleep just fine. You mistook tea for coffee lol (Americans...)
Europeans have a tendency to not make the distinction between herbal infusion and tea... No one is giving tea to toddlers, well I hope not.
Americans in the last century advocated giving whiskey to teething infants.
Your pearls are adequately clutched, but I guarantee someone somewhere has given "the devil brew" to innocent babes.
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#36quite interesting but I would have expected some insight into the preparation itself as how long do you have to steep, what temperature should the water have, etc
The BBC has come up with an excellent short documentary on how to perform proper tea preparation [1]. Essentially the hot water need to be boiling hot (100 degree celcius) and leave it brewing for a minimum 4 minutes after pouring into a cup of tea. From personal experiences, if you want to make good chai masala (or spicy milk tea) you need to keep it in boiling water for considerable amount of time (like cooking on…
> cinnamon (Sri Lanka cinnamon not the fake ones)
My god, this thread has really brought out the virtue-signalling Anglophile snobs en masse!
There are no "fake" cinnamons. Three different species of the genus Cinnamomum are harvested, with slightly varying qualities and market values.
It's not like when Americans buy "Mexican saffron". That is open fraud, because Mexican "saffron" is neither related genetically (it is a thistle, not a crocus), nor in taste (it is essentially a food dye).
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Science has shifted, depending on the discipline, from a colonial universalism perspective to one that accepts that “the truth” varies and can be a local phenomenon. I have a hard time buying into a prescriptive tea-making procedure. For example, you can heat up your temperature to boiling, but by the time you pour it, it will likely be down to the low to mid 90s. There’s other factors such as the material of the mug…
One thing I noticed is that the water matters. I noted that when visiting my sister down in the Bay Area, I had to steep for quite a bit less time before the bitter tannins would start creeping in. Like 1.5-2 mins tops for cheap PG Tips. But that same tea up north could sit for 3-4 minutes before the bitter tannins would creep in. It was a marked difference so there are obviously some confounding factors. I suspect t…
Other solutes in the water, like calcium chloride, can indeed greatly affect the solubility curves of the flavor compounds.
You can buy premixed packages of salts to dissolve into distilled water to precisely reproduce the composition of the well waters of some famous breweries, even though the result mostly still tastes like water.
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#38quite interesting but I would have expected some insight into the preparation itself as how long do you have to steep, what temperature should the water have, etc
It depends on the tea you’re brewing, what you want to make with it, and your personal taste. How could there possibly be an objective answer?
Perhaps not, but there are very objective, erm, pathways.
Want to avoid dissolving the more bitter flavor components? Steep at a lower temperature. Solubility curves are quasi-exponential with temperature, and a reduction from 95 to 85 C can spread out the time before tannins are strongly dissolved. You could get the exact same flavor at 95, perhaps, if you used a stopwatch. But objectively, the tea will get much more bitter a few seconds later. Objective lesson: to allow for ease in steeping timing, use a lower temperature. It's especially true for green teas, which (objectively) have more bittering compounds than fermented teas.
But: many Chinese people enjoy their green teas at a saturation (color) that I would call barely-not-water. Many Brits enjoy black breakfast teas brewed to levels I would only use to dye cloth. Plenty of subjectivity.
Re: Tea Chemistry (1997)
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Europeans have a tendency to not make the distinction between herbal infusion and tea... No one is giving tea to toddlers, well I hope not.
Americans in the last century advocated giving whiskey to teething infants. Your pearls are adequately clutched, but I guarantee someone somewhere has given "the devil brew" to innocent babes.
That's still somewhat common, but it generally entails rubbing whiskey on the gums, not feeding the babies shots of liquor.