An American scientist has sparked a trans-Atlantic tempest in a teapot by offering Britain advice on its favorite hot beverage.
Bryn Mawr College chemistry professor Michelle Francl says one of the keys to a perfect cup of tea is a pinch of salt. The tip is included in Francl’s book “Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea,” published Wednesday by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Not since the Boston Tea Party has mixing tea with salt water roiled the Anglo-American relationship so much.
The salt suggestion drew howls of outrage from tea-lovers in Britain, where popular stereotype sees Americans as coffee-swilling boors who make tea, if at all, in the microwave.
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The U.S. Embassy in London intervened in the brewing storm with a social media post reassuring “the good people of the U.K. that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain’s national drink is not official United States policy.”
You could easily over steep it if you microwave it with the bag in it, but if you’re just boiling water it shouldn’t make a difference, other than being inefficient vs a kettle.
This is probably a US vs UK thing on power supply. Microwave is way faster to heat water than a kettle because the max voltage is lower in the US
My electric kettle heats water super fast. I don’t know where the idea that 120v electric kettles are slow came from. Maybe kettle tech used to be worse but I have zero complaints about my kettle speed and I have used European kettles too.
Its possible to make your house 220v here, but we dont because everything sold here is shitty ass 115v
I don’t think I would steep it in the microwave, but I could see myself boiling or reheating tea in it.
Reheating tea? U wot?
Don’t knock it til you try it. Cold water and bag goes in a mug in microwave. 1-2 mins later tea comes out. No forgetting about hot water or letting things cool and forgetting about it. I dont care if it’s correct. It tastes good to me.
Isn’t microwaving the bag bad? Wouldn’t it add microplastics and such?
I had no idea but a quick search shows most teabags have plastics.
Not sure if there’s a difference between microwaving a bag in water or letting a bag sit in hot water
Barbarian!