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this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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xkcd
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You disgust me
Where's throwing it into the harbor fall on this chart?
Far left
The USA was apparently built on communism.
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Ok, but, why is microwaved water any different the water warmed in a kettle?
This seems like a pointless thing to get worked up over.
Went to see Randall doing his book promo and being interviewed by Matt Parker (in the UK) recently and this was his exact position on it
The audience were not on his side 😆
In my experience you won't actually boil water in the microwave because it takes an eternity so you end up with tea in "warm" water instead. Or apparently some people also put the tea bag in the microwave ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Brother it takes 3 minutes to boil water in the microwave. I have done this without fail.
It cools down much faster though. Not sure how that works.
It doesn't cool down faster. That makes no sense.
Listen I can't prove it, but I swear on my mother it does
It may appear that way if it was unevenly heated, causing pockets of boiling water surrounded by comparatively cool water. This would make it look like it's boiling, but then, when mixed, it is then much cooler than if heated by a kettle that relies on convection to mix the water.
You can prove it by boiling the water in different ways, putting a thermometer inside and then filming/timing it :D
Because only some of the water boils, not all of it.
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Water warmed in a kettle has much more even temperature in all points, which affects the brewing process. Generally, the more even the temperature is, the more consistent and rich is your brew.
I would consider microwave boiling as a makeshift method to produce a mediocre result when you need it anyway, not as a daily driver.
How does a kettle warm the water more evenly but a microwave doesn’t? When a kettle has it’s heating element only at the bottom but a microwave blasts the entire mass of water with energy because it sits on a rotating plate.
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I'm asking this from a place of genuine ignorance: how does the evenness of the heat distribution matter when microwaving a pure liquid? I'm familiar with the microwave's uneven heating qualities. I'm sure we've all bit into food that is scalding hot on the surface and still lukewarm at best in its interior. However, I've always presumed that is a product of microwaving a heterogenous, predominantly solid substance.
So, sure, the microwave applies heat unevenly to the water. But wouldn't the tiny little bits of water which get "over" heated simply diffuse their excess thermal energy into the rest of the homogenous volume in very short order? Furthermore,wouldn't an uneven heat distribution in a mug of water simply lead to convection currents flowing from hot to cold, therefore promoting a relatively even distribution?
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How about someone who leaves the tea bag in the mug, sometimes for multiple days? Sips the tea with multiple bags still in it? It creeps me out and I am not even a big tea drinker.
What the fuck
Made me think of that eternal stew, but you instead add in more and more tea bags
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I’m an American who drinks tea. I’d love to hear from our distant countrymen on how accurate this is.
100% spot on. Microwaved tea is comparable I would say to microwaving a steak
The state of education is extremely depressing holy shit.
It’s foul. Cup of Tannin, more like.
... wait, there are some americans who put the tea BAG in the microwave with the water?!?
I've MADE tea using a microwave before and it was ALWAYS "heating the water in the microwave, then adding the teabag to the hot water", it never even crossed my MIND to have the tea bag inside the microwave, and frankly that sounds AWFUL.
Maybe, who knows? Reheating tea though is absolutely foul. Worse than reheating coffee, somehow, and reheating coffee is pretty bad.
Why would you reheat tea in the first place? Just pour more boiling water in it.
Preaching meet choir.
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The patriot in me smiles every time I microwave the water. Yankee Doodle, motherfuckers.
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is it even on the chart when my water cooler at home has a hot spigot that dispenses water at just the right temperature for tea brewing? it's basically like having a kettle that's always ready...
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Patrick Stewart once said American tea was one thing he would never get used to. "For a proper cup of tea the water must be boiling when it hits the leaves." He really didn't like being brought a carafe of somewhat hot water with a teabag next to it. Even as an American I can relate.
My husband is Northern German, close enough to England that he was horrified at the thought of making tea in the microwave. And he doesn't even really drink tea when he's not sick.
Austrian here and I too would never make tea in the microwave. (I too drink tea mostly when I am sick.)
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Loose leaf or bust! Keep the tea bagging to online shooters
Yeah the kettle is just for boiling the water, nobody makes tea in it, that would wreck it. Yes, I'm English.
Kettle boils the water, the TEAPOT steeps and serves the tea. Somehow people end up thinking they're the same thing.
Needs to map sweet tea that the south enjoys.
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