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Paradox Personified posted:No, I thought this was due to not having nucleation sites in the water to allow boiling? If you get a good beaker, that's very 'smooth' in the inside, lacking the sites, you can superheat. Why Microwaving Water for Tea Is a Bad Idea. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/why-microwaving-water-for-tea-is-a-bad-idea-97452679/ So theres really two sides to the whole unevenly hot water thing, depends what fence you're on but they both agree on one thing: quote:The two do agree though, that the right temperature of water is really important. Overheating your water can make your tea taste bitter and weird, says Slate. But those without a kettle shouldn’t despair just yet: as long as you’re willing to drink only green tea, the microwave is the way to go. Fluo fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 07:58
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Fluo posted:Why Microwaving Water for Tea Is a Bad Idea. I don't think microwave heats water unevenly - there is still convection going, and water gets mixed even more when boiling starts. It certainly can overheat but that has nothing to do with uneven heating, more with lack of nucleation. Also even if you superheat water slightly it'll quickly lose the excess heat in rapid boiling and go down to exactly 100.
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Aug 26, 2014 09:40
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Pyromancer posted:I don't think microwave heats water unevenly - there is still convection going, and water gets mixed even more when boiling starts. It certainly can overheat but that has nothing to do with uneven heating, more with lack of nucleation. I'd still rather just use a £5 kettle.
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Aug 26, 2014 09:41
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The whole "don't use a microwave to make tea" thing is pure silly tea snobbery/people being Luddites. Are you in a situation where you can't use a kettle? Just use the drat microwave. If you're worried about superheating (don't be), put a plastic spoon or wooden stir stick or something in it to provide a nucleation point. If you're worried about "uneven heating" (don't be), stir the water to even it out. Of course, don't toss a tea bag into the cup then microwave it, but otherwise it's exactly the same as heating up water any other way. Seriously, this is like people freaking out that an electric kettle will make the water taste funny compared to heating the kettle on a wood stove.
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Aug 28, 2014 15:20
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everybody in the last page and a quarter posted:microwave water stuff This discussion seems to have gone in a weird direction - to reiterate my point earlier, it's not a question of uneven heat or superheating (I had only mentioned that as a curiosity), it's that the temperature is not controllable to the degree you'd want when working with anything other than black teas and rooibos which call for boiling water, however you get it. Attempting to fiddle with a microwave to brew delicates is something that is probably doable if you have a thermometer or a lot of time to do trial and error. The article that Fluo posted from the Smithsonian (which quotes the Slate article) also brings this up. There are some people who will throw a teabag into a mug with water and proceed to throw the whole thing into a microwave - the warning here is that this is doable too, but make sure you check to see if there's any metal such as a staple that is holding string to the teabag. Many teas you'll find from the grocery store do, so practice safety first before you gently caress up your favorite mug and also your microwave!
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Aug 28, 2014 17:09
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Zelmel posted:The whole "don't use a microwave to make tea" thing is pure silly tea snobbery/people being Luddites. Are you in a situation where you can't use a kettle? Just use the drat microwave. If you're worried about superheating (don't be), put a plastic spoon or wooden stir stick or something in it to provide a nucleation point. If you're worried about "uneven heating" (don't be), stir the water to even it out. Of course, don't toss a tea bag into the cup then microwave it, but otherwise it's exactly the same as heating up water any other way. Seriously, this is like people freaking out that an electric kettle will make the water taste funny compared to heating the kettle on a wood stove. Yeah. The other thing I've heard is that "microwave over-boiling causes more oxygen to leave the water!" which I don't really understand because I over-boil stuff on the stove all the time and then just let the kettle cool down a bit and my tea tastes fine. But maybe I make crappy low-oxygen tea normally?
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Aug 28, 2014 17:17
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Arcturas posted:Yeah. The other thing I've heard is that "microwave over-boiling causes more oxygen to leave the water!" which I don't really understand because I over-boil stuff on the stove all the time and then just let the kettle cool down a bit and my tea tastes fine. But maybe I make crappy low-oxygen tea normally? Any boiling whatsoever causes most of the oxygen to leave the water. The relative solubility of a gas in a liquid is inversely proportional to the solution's temperature.
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Aug 28, 2014 17:31
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CommonShore posted:Any boiling whatsoever causes most of the oxygen to leave the water. The relative solubility of a gas in a liquid is inversely proportional to the solution's temperature. So to make Super-Fancy-Amazing-High-Oxygen (TM) tea, you need to heat the tea to the right temperature without letting it boil?
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Aug 28, 2014 17:59
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Arcturas posted:So to make Super-Fancy-Amazing-High-Oxygen (TM) tea, you need to heat the tea to the right temperature without letting it boil? Backward. To do that you'd need to boil the water without warming it up (or decreasing the atmospheric pressure). Simply warming it up contributes to de-oxygenation. You know when you heat up a pot of water and little bubbles form well before it boils? That's largely the dissolved gasses leaving the solution. in other words, super oxygen tea 
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Aug 28, 2014 18:29
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CommonShore posted:Backward. To do that you'd need to boil the water without warming it up (or decreasing the atmospheric pressure). Simply warming it up contributes to de-oxygenation. You know when you heat up a pot of water and little bubbles form well before it boils? That's largely the dissolved gasses leaving the solution. I think the right answer is to make my janky-rear end microwave super boiled tea and then use the magic of science to re-inject oxygen into the brewed tea. Unless those crazy people say that the oxygen levels affects steeping too, not just drinking.
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Aug 28, 2014 18:41
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If you've got some bagged/baggable stuff that doesn't have any metal in it and you're willing to mess around with figuring out just how much time you need, there really isn't anything wrong with the "bag + mug + water, then microwave" method. You just have to find out how to hit around the temperature you want, and post-steep for very little time if at all.
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Aug 28, 2014 21:41
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My mom always puts one bag of Yamamotoyama jasmine tea in a large mug of water and nukes it for two minutes, sweetens with one packet of Equal, leaves the bag in the cup, and inevitably forgets about it several times and reheats it. It's not how I prefer to have my tea, but that's what she likes. v v
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Aug 28, 2014 23:15
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Zelmel posted:The whole "don't use a microwave to make tea" thing is pure silly tea snobbery/people being Luddites. Are you in a situation where you can't use a kettle? Just use the drat microwave. If you're worried about superheating (don't be), put a plastic spoon or wooden stir stick or something in it to provide a nucleation point. If you're worried about "uneven heating" (don't be), stir the water to even it out. Of course, don't toss a tea bag into the cup then microwave it, but otherwise it's exactly the same as heating up water any other way. Seriously, this is like people freaking out that an electric kettle will make the water taste funny compared to heating the kettle on a wood stove. I don't get what's snobbery about it. Almost every person in Britain has one and all offices, a £5 kettle isn't snobbery. You can get a kettle cheaper than a cinema ticket. Fluo fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 23:34
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So my tea from teavivre came in.  I also got a few kg in Chengdu. Still haven't unpacked from that trip. DontAskKant fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Aug 29, 2014 |
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Aug 29, 2014 02:17
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I... I think you might have a compulsion. That's a lotta tea.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:05
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Good god, and I thought I splurged today on a 400g bing
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Aug 29, 2014 03:24
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Holy poo poo dude.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:59
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Teavivre had such cheap sales and there were so many things I wanted to try. Also it was tough to say no when 100g of tea at a wholesale market in Chengdu is cheaper than anything I can get in Korea. The story of hey this is cheaper than a drink at a coffee shop, is a dangerous one to tell. You should see the hops I got too.
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Aug 29, 2014 04:09
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Fluo posted:I don't get what's snobbery about it. Almost every person in Britain has one and all offices, a £5 kettle isn't snobbery. You can get a kettle cheaper than a cinema ticket. Using a kettle isn't snobbery. Saying "using a microwave to heat your water ruins your tea!" is silly snobbery. (Also, kettles are much less common in the US, and we certainly can't get decent ones for that cheap)
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Aug 29, 2014 13:58
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Sorry but using a microwave gently caress's up your tea's chi and I mean if you don't give a poo poo about your chakras then go ahead on and nuke it but I'll be over here with my bowl-shaped rock and my fire pit gettin' my aura hella sparkly. 
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Aug 29, 2014 14:17
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I only heat my water with dragon's breath. That's they way St. George did it.
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Aug 29, 2014 14:33
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If you unevenly heat your water, it will show signs of boiling at a lower average temperature. One part can be 212, while another might only be 140. You can stir it together to even it out, but it will probably end up quite a bit less than 200. You can probably fix this by continuing to microwave the water for a long time after it starts to boil or by using a much lower power setting. But under normal use of a microwave I think most people would be under heating their water for black tea.
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Aug 29, 2014 15:09
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Zelmel posted:Using a kettle isn't snobbery. Saying "using a microwave to heat your water ruins your tea!" is silly snobbery. Really? Cause I see $10-$30 electric kettles (standard, no temperature control) in pretty much any kitchen supply store or Target. This whole thing is ridiculous. If you don't have a kettle, a microwave is fine, it just makes the process more complicated than it should be. If you're going to make tea on anywhere near a regular basis, get an electric kettle. Or boil it on the stove.
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Aug 29, 2014 15:09
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So, how do you guys get your tea on while travelling (in the US, land of microwaves and no kettles)? I'll be staying with relatives but I'd rather not run stoves and thermometers and stuff while I'm there. I prefer green tea.
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Aug 29, 2014 17:19
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chunkles posted:So, how do you guys get your tea on while travelling (in the US, land of microwaves and no kettles)? I'll be staying with relatives but I'd rather not run stoves and thermometers and stuff while I'm there. I prefer green tea. I bring a travel kit with a kettle I really need that tea (and I'm going to do some tea service for someone else) and test the temperature that way. Otherwise, I could do without and just drink water instead or cold brew if I'm going to be somewhere for a long period of time (overnight stay etc). You could also go to Peet's or Starbucks and order some tea but ask to have them keep the bag separate since they tend to overfill and oversteep.
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Aug 29, 2014 18:21
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If you're worried about over boiling just put fresh water in after steeping.
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Aug 30, 2014 14:33
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Juaguocio posted:Is there much difference between the superfine/nonpareil/etc. grades that they sell? To answer my own question: I bought a few different grades of oolong from Teavivre during their sale, and while there's a considerable increase in quality from the standard to "superfine" grades, the difference between "superfine" and "nonpareil" (the highest grade) seems negligible to me. To my taste, the 2014 teas are superior to the 2013s, so it could be that freshness is the biggest factor. I'm loving the 2014 Superfine Ali Shan. It has an amazingly complex flavor.
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Sep 9, 2014 07:51
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So I can't take a picture of it, but at the Sbux I work for we just received a care package from the retail tea team. It's full of samples of all the new Teavana stuff we'll be selling, as well as a 'PerfecTea Maker' for us to use in tastings. I'm not terribly enthusiastic about this, but it is full leaf, it's fresh, and I get a tin every week for free. Can't complain.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:58
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Eh, as iffy as Teavana can be, it's still better than the awful Tazo teabags that used to be the norm in Starbucks.
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Sep 10, 2014 18:35
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gamingCaffeinator posted:So I can't take a picture of it, but at the Sbux I work for we just received a care package from the retail tea team. It's full of samples of all the new Teavana stuff we'll be selling, as well as a 'PerfecTea Maker' for us to use in tastings. I'll admit. The only reason I've started stopping at Starbucks again is for the iced tea. Because it seems to be the only place that will serve it unsweetened without it tasting like butt. Honestly, it's not bad. I'm glad they've done it and I hope they don't take it off the menu when the weather changes.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:25
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gamingCaffeinator posted:So I can't take a picture of it, but at the Sbux I work for we just received a care package from the retail tea team. It's full of samples of all the new Teavana stuff we'll be selling, as well as a 'PerfecTea Maker' for us to use in tastings. The PerfectTea Maker is a pretty convenient device. Durable, light weight, easy to clean, hard to break, hard to make a mess with. I've seen a few different cafes/tea houses around my area use them; they're good for that kind of commercial setting, or like, in a break room, or anywhere else where you care more about producing the end product cup of tea quickly and easily than you do about enjoying the process of making it.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:57
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hope and vaseline posted:Eh, as iffy as Teavana can be, it's still better than the awful Tazo teabags that used to be the norm in Starbucks. They actually make a point of saying that these teas will not be available as bags in the retail stores, and I thought that was interesting. I have no idea what's going to happen to Tazo now though... I guess it's mostly been shelved? Eta: i bought one of the PerfecTea things because i could get it cheap. It's very convenient when I'm making herbal teas that i kinda just forget about I'm the worst at tea.
gamingCaffeinator fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 20:18
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Does Teavana make an Earl Grey that doesn't have lavender in it? I'd find it to be improvement over Tazo when I go to Starbucks, if that's the case. Edit: Yeah, looks like they do. But it uses artificial bergamot flavouring. So, um... pass. Gazetteer fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 20:40
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Gazetteer posted:Does Teavana make an Earl Grey that doesn't have lavender in it? I'd find it to be improvement over Tazo when I go to Starbucks, if that's the case. And it's really strong and fake-tasting. If you like real Earl Grey, steer clear. Teavana does well with teas you want to drink with sugar. It's a Georgia-based company, so the expectation is that you'll be sweetening your tea. I'm mad that they finally implemented the tea markout--after I quit.
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Sep 10, 2014 22:24
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cobalt impurity posted:Sorry but using a microwave gently caress's up your tea's chi and I mean if you don't give a poo poo about your chakras then go ahead on and nuke it but I'll be over here with my bowl-shaped rock and my fire pit gettin' my aura hella sparkly. This, but unironically.
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Sep 10, 2014 23:19
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I bought a big thing of Alokozay "Vietnam Loose" green tea a while back. I've really grown to like it a lot, it's got a chocolatey flavor, it was very evident when I put some honey in it once. Are other teas grown in vietnam like that? Maybe there are a bunch of twigs in it or something, or maybe it's roasted. I just want to get something similar when this runs out/gets stale.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:28
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Eeyo posted:I bought a big thing of Alokozay "Vietnam Loose" green tea a while back. I've really grown to like it a lot, it's got a chocolatey flavor, it was very evident when I put some honey in it once. Are other teas grown in vietnam like that? Maybe there are a bunch of twigs in it or something, or maybe it's roasted. I just want to get something similar when this runs out/gets stale. I can recommend the laoshan black from verdant tea, which has a lot of chocolate and malt flavors. It's out of stock right now but it looks like they are getting some in real soon. Their 5 for 5 deal is great value (5x5g of tea + a $5 coupon) but there isn't any date set on when that will be in stock.
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Sep 11, 2014 06:52
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Eeyo posted:I bought a big thing of Alokozay "Vietnam Loose" green tea a while back. I've really grown to like it a lot, it's got a chocolatey flavor, it was very evident when I put some honey in it once. Are other teas grown in vietnam like that? Maybe there are a bunch of twigs in it or something, or maybe it's roasted. I just want to get something similar when this runs out/gets stale. I've never heard any green tea described as 'chocolatey' before. Usually green tea has a very grassy/vegetative flavor. Some Chinese ones are very slightly malty. The tea I would most describe as chocolatey is Wuyi Tea from China, a sub-type and darkest of the oolongs. Its also called yancha. Here is a relatively low cost offering in bags. http://smile.amazon.com/Natural-Vintage-Wuyi-Oolong-Long/dp/B000G1PAC6/ If you've ever had hot tea at a Chinese restaurant, you've probably had it. Although, like the food, it is steeped weakly to accommodate a western palate. I have a good amount of this stuff... http://smile.amazon.com/Hong-Pao-Tea-Cake-Competitive/dp/B00EK3IS52/ that I drink from time to time. At that price there is no chance this is actually Da Hong Pao, but is probably descended from a DHP bush, likely 5+ generations removed from the original plants. It is darker and stronger then the bagged stuff above.
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Sep 14, 2014 05:21
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Yancha is awesome and keep in mind that it can be lighter or heavier in roasting, lighter will be more vegetal and darker will bring out those cocoa notes. This article is awesome if you're interested in the details of Wuyi oolongs http://teadb.org/wuyi-oolong-compendium/
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Sep 14, 2014 05:25
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I use this perfect tea mug at work, or at home when I want just one cup. When I go to movies or if I am going on a trip for a couple days I bring a double paned glass travel tumbler with a machined steel strainer. I hate mesh strainers. I'm really picky about these though, and my cat broke my favorite one last year. I didn't find a new one to my liking until this past spring. At home I usually use a ceramic tea pot. I do really like market spice, but I always brew it lighter than recommended.
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Sep 15, 2014 04:38
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