Fesshole 🧻I'm a brit living in America. At my office there's no kettle, but we have a hot water dispenser. Today it's broken. When I lamented I can't make a cup of tea, a colleague suggested I microwave the water. Trump is not the only thing that makes this place a hellscape.
Axel Gutmann@fesshole Honest question: why not? The tea won't care how the water got hot.
David Todd McCartyI wondered the same. It can’t affect the taste. Is it a principle thing? I boil a kettle on a stovetop every morning for coffee I make in a French press because that’s how I like to do it, but I’d microwave a cup of water for tea in a pinch.
Also don’t really trust the hot water from the tap. Idk why.
SkjeggtrollIt really _does_ affect the taste.
I suspect it's because boiling water in the microwave takes less time and doesn't induce convection currents so that the water retains more dissolved air than when boiled in a pot or a kettle, but that's just my personal theory.
(Re-heating a cold cup of tea in the microwave is fine.)
I’ll accept the premise that you believe it tastes different regardless of whether that’s factually correct, and that’s enough.
Get an electric kettle, I say.
@skjeggtroll @dtm @fesshole Sincerely doubt that. Solubility of air in water is a direct function of temperature. Of course one should make sure the water has time to equalize the temp.
Oliver Schafeld@oliver_schafeld And how do you intend to measure "gustatory quality"?
Twotired@virbonus @oliver_schafeld Double blind taste test.
(Personally, I’m skeptical that microwaved water tastes any different)
(Personally, I’m skeptical that microwaved water tastes any different)
C++ Wage Slave@skjeggtroll @virbonus @fesshole
This is the most Fediverse convo. The scientific quandary of boiling water using microwaves and the existential crisis of physics on the aesthetics of tea.
Judd Apatow tells the story of his mother when he was young. She was having financial difficulties after her divorce but still she went out and bought a Mercedes. Why, Judd asked? Why not get a Honda and have money left over?
“Because I’m not an animal,” she said.
Ben AvelingI'd assume that lack of convection means less lost dissolved oxygen, but I'd also suspect that lack of convection means the average temperatures is sub-boiling, even when the outside layer is at least 100 degrees.
@skjeggtroll @dtm @virbonus @fesshole
@skjeggtroll @dtm @virbonus @fesshole