A US scientist has brewed up a storm by offering Britain advice on making tea

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 204 points – A US scientist has brewed up a storm by offering Britain advice on making tea
apnews.com

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.

...

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.”

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Hold on, about to have my morning cup o Yorkshire, will report back

Edit - it kinda just makes it... rounder. Tea is supposed to be a little bit bitter, the salt makes the softer flavours more pronounced so it kinda stops tasting like tea

Edit 2, second cuppa. Just realised the prof probably doesn't realise that a pinch of salt is actually quite a bit, so I tried an actual tiny pinch. You know what, it actually does improve it a tiny bit, but no enough that I need more salt in my life.

Does that daft cow not realise how much tea we drink? This is diabolical

Thanks for your research, I was too lazy to get off the chair and try myself

You need to drink more (average modern human drinks too less). Then you need more salt.

Add salt BEFORE putting the cup in the microwave, not after. Silly Brits.

Fun fact, the modern tea bag was invented by an American. We really know how to throw a tea party.

I believe it was invented by accident. They were sending over samples of some tea in individual silk bags and the people thought of putting the whole thing in the cup.

My understanding (from wiki) is that they intended it to be individual servings of tea, and that customers would dump the contents of the bag out.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_bag

"agitating the bag"

If you want to create a better cup of tea at least begin with tea leaves, not tea bags.

I could not agree more. However, a lot of tea drinkers love their dust filled paper bags.

Care to elaborate? I don't see how having the leaves in a bag is inferior to having them loose

A decent guide to tea grades here. Even with higher end teabags, any tea dust created (e.g. if the teabag gets squashed) gets trapped inside the bag. The tea dust makes for a more bitter cup.

With very few exceptions the tea used in teabags is of much lower quality than loose leaf tea. Often it´s just fannings and dust, swept from the floor.

Somehow I doubt tea companies are sweeping dust off the floor and putting it in tea bags. C'mon.

I am not an expert but I have read about such practices again and again over the years. It´s also common knowledge that food companies do much, much worse things.

Dust is what remains after the tea has passed through the grading machine. It is powdery in texture and is often swept off the floor. Dust is considered the lowest grade of tea.

Source: https://teapeople.co.uk/pages/loose-leaf-or-teabags

Tea in bags is pulverized while loose leaf tends to be intact leaves. It changes the flavor.

Whats next britain giving advice on how to most effictivly shoot ur fellow shoolchildren?

One joke

It'll stop being funny when it stops being true

There is a reason everyone calls them the worlds greatest 3rd world country. They are always making it the greatest just never specified at what.

Now I'm curious how that would taste.

We are not talking about Tibetan butter tea salt levels here. In the article it is recommended to use just enough salt to tone down the bitterness by blocking the bitterness receptors on the tongue, not so much that the tea actually tastes salty.

Yeah 'make a better tea by making it taste less like a tea'. I have seen a lot of that from people who just don't like tea.

Though, for me that also include Brits, who spoil a good tea by adding milk ;-)

Though, for me that also include Brits, who spoil a good tea by adding milk ;-)

🤨 Breathe and count to ten. Stop grinding your teeth. No one needs to die. Breathe...

as far as I've heard the amount salt blocks bitterness is very individual, and doesnt work at all for some

I'll Chime in with my two cents that my experience with coffee and a pinch of salt really cuts the bitterness...

But I prefer bitter coffee so it's wasted on me.

Yeah, seems silly to discount something you've never tried just because it isn't what you're used to, but hey, that's the English way.

Uh no, hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.

Oh bollocks. Any country with traditions are unlikely to respond well to beibg told they're doing it wrong. Tell Italians how to make pizza and see how they respond. Or try to tell the French anything

Well tea comes from China and Italian cuisine wouldn’t be jack-shit without the stuff they got from Meso-America.

David Bowie wrote a song about changes. It’s good. You should listen.

The bad point for the British is: The professor is actually right! At least on the accord with the salt.

I don't agree with her on another issue: She suggested to add milk after brewing. Nope. You don't add milk at all. Or worse, lemon juice. Milk murders tea. It basically kills the more interesting chemicals by binding them into a mass that can't be used by the digestive tract.

Where do you stand on sugar?

As someone with diabetes, I decline. But I am actually not opposed to someone using sugar. It does not react with the essential ingredients. Just don't overdo it, tea is not soda...

Our bodies make all the sugar we need, honey on the other hand, give er

Depends on the tea, some tea is to be made with milk, for example chai, and some can be made with lemon juice, but most teas are to be brewed and had as is

You have piqued my interest on the thing of milk binding up beneficial chemicals. Can you elaborate?

The classic answer is that milk proteins (like casein) react with some the tea proteins (like tannin) and form bonds that the human digestion track cannot process. Tannin in black tea is responsible for most the bitter taste, which is the primary reason why people add milk to tea in the first place, but it is also one of the ingredients that make tea the more healthier beverage choice.

There is a scientific article I've read years ago that gave a lot more details, but with everything scientific behind f-ing paywalls nowadays, I could not find it again.

But I found an article that adds another interesting twist to the topic that I had not heard before: Milk Casein Inhibits Effect of Black Tea Galloylated Theaflavins to Inactivate SARS-CoV-2 In Vitro.

Thanks for taking the time to write that! I learned something new today. I usually take tea with oat milk, so now I’m curious what proteins oat milk has and if they act similarly. I’ll do some more reading.

While I doubt that oat milk has casein, as it is an animal protein, it might have other proteins that bind tannin in similar ways. Keep us posted!

Agree. Add in some lemon or ginger to be fancy but no milk.

Meanwhile China is over there watching the west argue about a drink it invented millennia ago.

I don't doubt this works because it definitely makes acidic/bitter coffee more palatable.

That's alright mate. I guess if I ever want advice on tea making, I'll speak to the Chinese.

Kinda surprised this is just now coming up for tea drinkers. 3rd wave coffee nerds have been using saline solution to cut down on bitter flavors for like a decade now.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

LONDON (AP) — 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 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.

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.”

The product of three years’ research and experimentation, the book explores the more than 100 chemical compounds found in tea and “puts the chemistry to use with advice on how to brew a better cup,” its publisher says.

She also advocates making tea in a pre-warmed pot, agitating the bag briefly but vigorously and serving in a short, stout mug to preserve the heat.

The original article contains 398 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Ironically the English don’t really know how to make tea. Then dump hot water on a tea bag then immediately throw on cold milk, making it impossible to actually brew.

I like the idea of using molten salt to heat up the water and leaves.

Step 1, grab some tea
Step 2, throw it the fuck out
Step 3, make coffee

I live a few hours from the nearest harbor. will a lake work?

Im a few hours away from Boston too, lets have a tea party!