An American scientist has sparked a trans-Atlantic tempest in a teapot by offering Britain advice on its favorite hot beverage.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11138800

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.”

  • Mr_Blott@lemmy.worldEnglish
    53·
    5 months ago

    Perhaps because people rarely clean their microwave, and boiling water can splash up on the top of the microwave and drip back into the cup

      • Mr_Blott@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        Now, you say that, but the concentration of heat in a microwave is completely random. You can have parts of the water at 60° while other bits are being superheated to a couple of hundred degrees

      • PatMustard@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        How hard do you boil it? Does your microwave have an in-built thermometer which stops the heating at the right temperature like a kettle?

          • PatMustard@feddit.ukEnglish
            2·
            5 months ago

            You stare through the radiation-shielding mesh for the entire time hoping to see the bubbles and stop it before it froths everywhere? No wonder I keep seeing all these warnings about superheated water!

              • PatMustard@feddit.ukEnglish
                1·
                5 months ago

                It’s the main thing that people seem to talk about regarding microwaving water. But regardless of that, do you sit and watch the water through the microwave window?

                • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  5 months ago

                  no, you get used to how long it takes pretty quickly and can ignore it for the first 30 seconds safely no matter what. after like 5 attempts you just know how long to do it and there’s no actual danger so…