this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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No, of course we don't microwave the mug WITH the teabag in it. We microwave the teabag separately.

https://explainxkcd.com/3022/

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Loose leaf or bust! Keep the tea bagging to online shooters

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Austrian here and I too would never make tea in the microwave. (I too drink tea mostly when I am sick.)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ha, my sister lives in Germany and the weirdest thing she finds about German tea habits is that they only drink tea in winter, which I guess is kind of on a par with being sick. In the UK tea is a constant but in Germany it seems to be more of a special circumstances thing (illness, cold weather...). Even the person my sister buys her tea from shuts up shop in the summer because there's no market for it.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (5 children)

You boil water in a pot if you want to drink a cup off tea late at night and don't want the loud kettle to wake up the whole house.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

You disgust me

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

The patriot in me smiles every time I microwave the water. Yankee Doodle, motherfuckers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So, where do I put my gaiwan on the spectrum?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For when you actually want 10 tiny cups of tea.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Rookie numbers! Try 20-50 tiny cups.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I’m an American who drinks tea. I’d love to hear from our distant countrymen on how accurate this is.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Not British, but in my experience... accurate.

I mean, I'm also not British and am roughly aligned with this spectrum myself.

Look, if you can tolerate the absolute nonsense you hear from Americans about how to make coffee you can deal with me having a spice rack specifically to make tea.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

100% spot on. Microwaved tea is comparable I would say to microwaving a steak

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s foul. Cup of Tannin, more like.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

... 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maybe, who knows? Reheating tea though is absolutely foul. Worse than reheating coffee, somehow, and reheating coffee is pretty bad.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Why would you reheat tea in the first place? Just pour more boiling water in it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Preaching meet choir.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Close enough to zero to be a rounding error, I'd bet.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

For a start, you don't make tea in a kettle, you boil the water in that, then either pour into a mug or a teapot

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

I refuse to believe that Randall doesn't know how tea is actually made, so it has to be a meta-joke / troll.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

That’s how I do it. Electric kettle. Glass.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

In the neighboring State from where I live in Brazil, a lot of gas stations have publicly accessible hot water taps. Even some parks and plazas have them. It's for the Mate drinkers to refill their Thermos.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Where's throwing it into the harbor fall on this chart?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Needs to map sweet tea that the south enjoys.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Could be a problem if you microwave it together with the tea bag.

Also I find microwaves to not heat up the water properly, leaving some cold spots.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hard to believe that cold spots could stay for more than a moment with the Brownian motion.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you not add gelatin to your water before making tea?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Modified corn starch, miss me with those animal products (I actually am not vegan).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The microwaves will heat your water more evenly than a kettle.

Liquids have this amazing property, that if you heat them , they auto-stir just by themselves.

(But personally, I'm uneasy about microwaving a tea bag with paper on one end, or worse, a staple. There's probably no problem at all, but it doesn't feel that way.)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

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)_/¯

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

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 😆

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Not perfectly relevant, but I've always enjoyed Professor Elemental's take on tea.

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