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Lady tasting tea

en.wikipedia.org

71–80 of 86 posts

Re: Lady tasting tea

#71
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...

> detectable trace of caramelization

I was alway told the milk-last 'scalds' the milk, and I do prefer the taste of milk-first, especially with the first pour of the pot.

If making teabag tea, it's better to let the tea brew (and cool) for a few minutes before adding milk. Adding the milk just after the water gives a terrible cup.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#72
post #59

To solve this debacle, I only brew my tea in milk. Much better taste. I'd rather just plain tea than water tea + milk, it just seems the worst of both worlds to me.

Jesus Christ I hope you're joking with the brewing tea in milk. That's terrifying.

Not sure what's terrifying about it, terrifyingly tasty!

Also several cultures around the world do that pretty commonly.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#73

To solve this debacle, I only brew my tea in milk. Much better taste. I'd rather just plain tea than water tea + milk, it just seems the worst of both worlds to me.

I do this with 'spiced chai' (cardomom or other spice teas). It gives a delicious full flavour, but ugh no cow milk please. Oat or almond.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#74
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

The ISO link[1] says this standard has been withdrawn however.

[1] https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:3103:ed-1:v1:en

Re: Lady tasting tea

#75

George Orwell has entered the chat https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... ... one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is t…

Right, because it's much harder to measure a specific amount of milk in isolation than to eyeball how much of it you've just added to something else. If you were concerned about regulating the amount of milk you were adding, tea first wouldn't even be a possibility.

I measure the amount of milk by the colour it turns the tea. That's easy, and works the same for any size and shape of cup. Measuring how much milk you've poured into the bottom of a cup is much harder (especially when you want a small amount of milk, so it'll be a little puddle at the bottom of an opaque cup).

Re: Lady tasting tea

#76
post #39
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Minor, but no it's 1/(8 choose 4) = 1/70 because there are 4 tea-first, 4 milk-first, and the lady tasting tea knows this. Once the locations of the four tea-first cups are decided, the locations of the remaining milk-first cups are completely determined. (And there are 8 slots for those first 4 cups, hence 8 choose 4).

Ah yes, I stand corrected! In that case I suppose more trials really would have made the results more convincing, too....

Re: Lady tasting tea

#77
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...

> detectable trace of caramelization I was alway told the milk-last 'scalds' the milk, and I do prefer the taste of milk-first, especially with the first pour of the pot. If making teabag tea, it's better to let the tea brew (and cool) for a few minutes before adding milk. Adding the milk just after the water gives a terrible cup.

If you want to receive the health benefits from the tea then you should brew for at least four minutes, I've heard. This does only really apply if the tea is of at least reasonable quality, of course.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#78

To solve this debacle, I only brew my tea in milk. Much better taste. I'd rather just plain tea than water tea + milk, it just seems the worst of both worlds to me.

My father-in-law does that with coffee. Fill a mug with milk, add two scoops of instant coffee, 60 seconds in the microwave at 800W, stir, another 10-30 seconds in the microwave, stir, drink. He won't have it any other way.

Re: Lady tasting tea

#79
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good tea cups would never crack from boiling water, unless they were frozen first. Tea first is probably due to the fact that everybody wants tea, but not everybody wants milk, and some people want to pour their own amount of milk. You offer tea, they accept, you pour tea, you offer milk.

>lower classes poured the milk first >Good tea cups would never crack from boiling water That's sort of the point OP was making, I think. Poor folks wouldn't be able to afford good quality tea cups?

[dead]

Re: Lady tasting tea

#80
Not mentioned here is the lady’s name, Muriel Bristol.

I have also heard that this is a different way with 6 cups. This matters because 6C3 = 6! / (3!(6-3)!) = 20. That 1/20 chance of getting all 3 cups right is said to be the basis for the 5% significance cutoff for p values.

Another basis for the 5% cutoff is the (even earlier) Poisson distribution, with zero expected events, 3 observed. In this case, the probability of occurrence by chance is 1/e^3, which is just under 5%. In other words, the 5% p value is analogous to “3 strikes you’re out” because the probability of 3 uncommon events or exceptions is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Bristol

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