We lost our smaller measuring cup in the move, so one of my first purchases when I got my first job was a pyrex measuring cup. I learned the hard way that the only thing pyrex about it is the logo
Heh, no worries, I just wanted to spread awareness about this issue in a cheeky way ! Though it does legitimately feels weird seeing these as a European because we only get the “real” ones here.
“True” Pyrex is made of borosilicate glass and is very resistant to changes in temperature, making it excellent for lab or kitchen use. You can tell when it’s “true” Pyrex if the lettering is in all caps. If it’s not, it’s just regular glass.
(You seem sincere, so at the risk of killing the joke, I want to point out that both of my comments are deadpan humor! The phrase is indeed “fancy a cuppa”, and I’m intentionally getting it wrong, like the tea preparation instructions in the OP.)
No I’m talking about superheating - OP is putting water in a smooth glass vessel with no points for bubbles to form. IT REALLY is worth mentioning to the casual viewer.
superheating is rarely a thing and you can avoid it in a multitude of ways including slapping a spoon in your cup
It’s not worrying at all unless youve never used a microwave for this purpose. I’ve microwaved a shit ton of water in those exact Pyrex measuring cups and never had an issue with superheating. Nobody in my family ever has going all the way back to the 60s.
They’d not experience this situation as, like another commenter stated, even a pyrex glass has nucleation sites for boiling
If they’ve double-microwaved the water then they have a chance at superheating, but that is not the same situation as just microwaving water in a pyrex cup, the thing that was being called extremely dangerous
But sure, well just keep being scared of doing it at all because some people can’t remember that they already heated something
The variables involved in driving are not reliable. Even if you’re the safest driver you can still be involved in an accident. The same cannot be said about repeatedly boiling water in the same vessel for years, like the person you are responding to. They are not lucky in the same way drivers are to avoid accidents.
There's enough nucleation points, even in a pyrex measuring cup, to avoid superheating, as long as you're just bringing it to a rolling boil at maximum (so like 3 minutes, tops), and then using it.
The real problem comes when you microwave the water for three minutes, forget about it, then microwave it again. The nucleation points you had the first time around are now too few. Now when you pour the water into another vessel - or even just jog the water in the existing vessel - it can suddenly and explosively boil over.
If you look videos up, people have been able to many times over reliably produce superheating phenomina and “bump” (the term for the explosion) boiled water in a glass cup. Just look it up, it’s actually a pretty common science experiment people have shown.
Again - the issue is all about nucleation sites. These are "points where phase transition is favored." Nucleation sites are necessary for the heated water to change from liquid to gas.
As you heat water, it will phase shift from liquid to gas beneath the surface at these nucleation sites. That's where the bubbles and the rolling boil comes from in boiling water. So long as there are sufficient nucleation sites within the water holding on to tiny bits of air - whether those are tiny variations in the surface of the container, or particulate matter - there is no danger. If the water in the container is bubbling or rolling, there is no danger of "superheating."
The danger comes when all the little air bubbles held by those nucleation sites have already been freed and left the liquid. The water is extremely hot, but it is unable to phase shift beneath its surface. Now there is danger, because there aren't any nucleation sites left. Introducing new nucleation sites (making contact with previously uncontacted upper parts of the container, adding something like instant coffee, or pouring into another container) causes the phase shift from liquid to gas to happen again, and if the added number of nucleation sites is high enough, the whole container will try to phase shift at the same time. Because the water is in a container, with an open top, the only place for it all to go is out that top, explosively, like a bullet exiting a gun.
None of the previous paragraph will happen with potable water in a household container microwaved for three minutes.
Myth # 3 - Exploding Water
The Myth - If a glass of water is microwaved, removed, and an additive placed in it, it can explode due to superheating.
Verdict - True
Notes - If the water had no impurities in it at the time of superheating (for instance, distilled water), then any sort of additive placed within will make the water flash to steam and violently spray.
As someone who has first hand witnessed a fair share of microwaves getting wrecked by people microwaving metal in them accidently, that answer is bullshit.
If the metal object gets near the (typically right) side of the microwave, it 100% will arc and at best short out the microwave, but at worst I have first hand seen it cause a fire.
The metal object effectively becomes quite a fair bit charged with electrons from the surrounding air from the microwaves running along its surface. This in turn slowly builds up a negative charge difference between the metal object and the surrounding walls.
At enough of a differential plasma will form and an arc of electricity will go from the metal object to anything it can get close to.
And if that “thing close to it” is the wall of the microwave that houses the actual unit in it, it can short out the electronics sitting in there.
Also, it can seriously harm someone if the microwave isn’t grounded properly (and boy is that unfortunately more common than you may think), and they are touching the frame of the microwave, as now they are the ground.
Water becomes super heated and the steam held in by surface tension.(Iirc) I assume anything with enough water content and no way to relieve the bubbles can experience this. But I don't know for sure.
Not sure why the down votes but yes exploding hot water from a microwave is not a good time.
I generally don’t use a microwave but a sauce pan on the stove or a electric kettle is the safer way to boil water. There are other things one can do to make microwaved water safer though…
I’ve been boiling water in the microwave for decades, the only dangerous thing about it is that it is hot like any boiling water. It’s also quick, efficient, doesn’t pollute your home like a gas stove, can be left on its own without fire hazard, and boil time is incredibly consistent.
Electric kettles are probably the best option, but a microwave is the second best option.
There is a random phenomina called “bumping” that occurs with heated up fluids in any form of smooth/glass container.
As you heat up the fluid, it can actually not go through its phase change to gas if it doesnt have a catalyst point to start off of. If the container is too smooth, it doesnt turn into a gas (yet)
When you introduce any kind of rough material or expose it to moving air, or literally just agitate it a bit… like say dip a spoon in, or shake it a bit, or stir it, or your hand isnt steady, suddenly a lot of the fluid, all at once, turns to a gas as it is in an unstable state.
What happens is very abruptly all the force of the boiling water happens very suddenly all at once, and the water explodes. Typically if its pretty hot this shatters the container, blows the water all over the place, and it’s all boiling hot and can cause first and second degree burns.
Its a common problem, if you google it you can find videos of people demo’ing the phenomina.
If you have ever seen those videos where a water bottle is carefully “frozen” but still liquid, and the person smacks it and the entire thing very suddenly freezes all at once, its the exact same effect but instead of all of it freezing at once, all of it boils at once.
Mythbusters did an episode on this one and was able to very reliably reproduce the effect.
The phenomenon doesn’t sound “random” as it can be predictably mitigated, it might involve randomness on the micro level but not the macro.
You’re also describing heating water far over the boiling point. It takes as much energy to vaporize about half of a cup of water as it does just to heat four cups of water from room temperature to boiling point. Just don’t do that, don’t put the water in for much longer than it needs to be. In fact there is no reason to bring the water to boiling temperature, it will be perfectly good for steeping tea or coffee at just below boiling temp. Still concerned? Put the spoon you are going to use to stir the tea in the measuring cup. Heat on a lower power level for longer.
I don’t take any of these precautions though. I know how long it takes to heat water. Your first time using a specific microwave you could use a thermometer and heat in half minute increments, that way you know exactly how long it will take in the future because the appliance is predictable, especially for heating straight water.
Regardless of safety it just makes sense from an environmental perspective to not heat water for longer than it takes to get to the temp you need it to be at.
You are now recommending the act of putting a metal object in a microwave as a solution to how already dangerous it can be to microwave water in a glass.
You are actively spreading dangerous disinformation that could cause a person serious harm. Stop that, bad internet stranger, bad.
Metal was your assumption. But also metal objects can be safe in a microwave. A metal spoon it is an optimal reflector of microwaves but in this case it is surrounded by water which is an optimal absorber. It’s dangerous to heat metal by itself but that is a moot point because it is also dangerous to microwave nothing at all…
I’m not spreading dangerous information, you are assuming dangerous operation. Cooking can be dangerous. But you are doing something akin to telling someone not to cook with oil because it can splatter and cause terrible burns, rather than informing them on safety precautions when cooking with oil. Rather than fear mongering about superheated fluids being an inevitability, you could tell someone to avoid superheating fluids, the simplest way being not overcooking. Which is very easy to do with a microwave because they are predictable and shut off on their own.
Hey you know, sometimes you don’t have a kettle on hand and even if you do, it’s all crusty and gross looking. Plus, it takes forever to boil the water. Microwaves on the other hand: you just put the water in it, wait a little bit, bada bing badda boom, it’s done and ready to go. So like, if microwaving water is a crime, then lock me up
Heating up food using microwaves does exactly that. It works because the waves are emitted within a certain frequency range that affects the water content within it, from which the heat spreads to the rest of the food over time.
You could give it another short spin after the hour has passed.
What I usually do (for ~4 cups) is boiling 1,1 liters of water in a kettle, filling a teabag with 3-4 teaspoons of tea, rinsing the thermo bottle with the 0,1 liter of water, brewing the tea, then forgetting about it for 15-30 min, suddenly exclaiming “Oh, the tea!” (but in my own language) which, to me at least, is funny because (short story long) I once ordered a bunch of free Christian bumper stickers online, which I, long ago, before I even had this habit of forgetting the brewing bottle, had cut out into different words and letters of said christian bumper stickers and stuck onto the thermo bottle, reading (exactly) “Oh, the tea!”.
On a sidenote, no matter how long I usually forget it while it’s brewing, it’s always still too hot - and even never too strong. Pure Earl Grey - no milk, no sugar!
How to make Southern (US) sweet tea: put about a quart of water in a saucepan, plus 4 cups of sugar and the number of Orange Pekoe teabags you would use to make a gallon (for me it’s about 8 normal or 4 family-sized). Bring to a boil and immediately remove from heat. Steep 2-3 minutes. Remove bags and stir to make sure sugar is dissolved. Fill a gallon container with ice. Pour the hot tea over ice and add cold water to fill up. Serve over more ice.
Also, be sure to use Lipton (which is orange pekoe but so are some other brands so specificity helps)… Anything else is subpar for sweet tea (iced Southern US style).
Just make sure your clotted cream is on your spotted dick first then the baked beans, not the other way around! Unless you’re in Rickmansworth in which case your clotted cream goes on your black pudding after your mushy peas.
Is that because it cools enough to not scorch the tea? I always add tea last, even for a gallon of iced tea, it does seem to taste better; and I never press out the bags into anything other than the sink or my lantana.
Ok honest question. Do Brits only let the tea soak for like 2-5 minutes? I always let it soak for longer, like 15 minutes otherwise I think it just doesn’t taste as good.
Edit: I probably should have clarified that, when I say 15 minutes, I was thinking about teabags. I only use teabags for stuff like lavender tea etc. Also I would never let black tea soak for 15 minutes, I’ve accidentally been there. Can’t recommend it.
I’m from the US so maybe not what you’re looking for, but for black tea you need a few things:
212° water (freedom units) - must be boiling, not boiled-then-left-to-cool. I use an electric kettle. If your water isn’t hot enough your tea won’t steep effectively.
Decent tea. If you’re steeping 15 minutes you might be drinking cheap tea made with fannings (essentially the tea dust that’s left over after the better quality products have been packaged). I drink Yorkshire Gold but this is a matter of preference.
Milk and sugar to taste, but these should complement the tea. Tea should be the predominant flavor, it shouldn’t just taste like milk or sugar.
Here’s what you do:
Heat the water to a rolling boil.
While the water is still boiling, pour over the teabag. Pour slowly enough that you don’t rupture the bag.
Steep for 5 minutes.
Remove the teabag. Don’t squeeze it out - this releases more tannins and your brew will be more bitter.
(CONTROVERSIAL!) Add milk and sugar. Some people will tell you milk goes in first. These people are wrong.
Some people will talk at you about teapots and patinas but honestly if you’re an infrequent tea drinker it’s not worth bothering with.
Signed - an American anxiously awaiting all the UKians who will tell me I’m doing it wrong.
I don’t give a shit about patinas and just use a French press I got from Ikea. But I do have a programmable kettle set to 70 or 80 °C, virtually only use loose leaf green and oolong teas, and steep two minutes for the first steeping and 90 seconds for each subsequent one. (For black tea I just crank the temperature to boiling and keep everything else the same.)
That probably makes me snobbish enough to confuse people who don’t drink tea but amateurish enough to annoy the snobs.
In the end any approach is fine as long as you like the result.
My last couple of electric kettles had various levels for coffee, black tea, herbal tea and then the roaring boil of the 212 of your freedom units. I suspect the roaring is due to all of the freedom.
I’m surprised the coffee setting is so low compared to the teas.
I’ve never really paid attention to how longto leave a tea bag in. Usually it’s stayed in the whole time while drinking it. Recently I’ve started to read the boxes the tea comes in and Earl Grey is like 3 minutes depending on the brand and herbal is 5-10.
As for number 5 I’ve read back when China was becoming more common place it was almost a caste level nod if you put your milk in first or last.
Early cheaper China would crack or break from hot water/tea being poured directly into the cup first. Placing the milk in first helped cover up this flaw by cooling down the tea.
Pouring your hot tea directly into your cups without the milk first was a subtle flex of your superior China quality. I do miss some of this nuance in a world that’s seems to be on full blast most of the time.
I remember hearing an American discovering that they shouldn’t just leave the bag in the tea. They were wondering how anyone even likes tea since it is so bitter lol
American here. 15 minutes is a wild amount of time to have your tea steeping before drinking, not least of which because it’s probably too cold by then! If anyone finds all tea too bitter, or has to add a ton of sugar and milk, it’s because it’s a quick beverage, not a potion or a science experiment…
I think the issue is not the fact that it’s a teabag, it’s the lavender part. If you’re having fancy tea then you leave it in much longer, if you’re having normal tea then 15 minutes is as heretical as the OP!
Teabag tea is cut up much much finer than looseleaf tea. Whereas looseleaf is identifiable bits of leaf, the stuff in teabags is ground up into a powder. They do this deliberately so that it will brew more quickly, and a good cup normally takes 3-5 minutes.
Looseleaf tea takes longer to brew, which is why you can brew a big pot, pour and drink one cup, and then come back for a second that’s been sat on the leaves without it tasting like industrial chemicals.
I’m Canadian and we have a long heritage with English things … especially tea. But our brothers and sisters are American so we have a lot of overlap in our culture.
I grew up in northern Ontario in an indigenous community. Mom and dad were traditional people who were born and raised in the bush. They lived on your old English black tea. We treated it like a survival food and basically cooked it like it was coffee. All my life tea was made by boiling water in a large metal 4 litre tea pot and once there was a rolling boil, you dropped in eight tea bags and let it bubble for a minute until it all turned into a deep reddish liquid. The best tea was always in the first half an hour, after that it was like drinking a really strong coffee.
I drank that from the time I was a baby … really! I remember seeing mom fill a baby bottle with warm tea, canned milk and a bit of sugar and feed it to my baby brothers. I assume she did the same to me.
Once I started living away from home, I drank less tea and more coffee. But I always love my black tea.
Never order it in a restaurant in Canada. Half the time a cheap little restaurant will just use hot tap water and drop the shittiest tea bag thats been sitting on the shelf for years to make your brew.
The only public place to get good tea is at Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee chain. They actually make the kind of tea I grew up with, really strong brewed tea that is kept fresh regularly. Their coffee is shit but their tea is excellent … at least to me.
Thanks for sharing your story. I bet that tea your parents made was also useful for a lot of things. Did they ever make you run on a treadmill afterwards to power a generator?
As a kid, me and every kid around me in the same situation probably drove our teachers insane … I feel terribly for them when I think about it now. But in the summer time when we were off school, I’d wake up drink a cup of tea, eat some toast and then spend the entire day outside, rain or shine. Starting when I was about seven or eight I’d spend the day on my own. We were surrounded by family so there was never a problem. I’d come home for more tea and supper was always at six, eat for ten minutes and head out again until the sun went down. We have freezing Arctic winters here between the great lakes and Hudson Bay but as a little kid, my parents thought it was normal to just give me a light parka and let me play outside with my friends for hours. I remember being about 11 or 12 and wandering away into the bush in minus 20 degree weather an hour from home with my friends just to say we could do it.
Always made our way back to the house for another cup of tea. That energy drink is basically what powered most of my life. I didn’t have a treadmill but I probably traveled thousands of kilometers because of this drink.
Tea … I’m probably 50% tea at this point in my life … I’ve been drinking it since the day I was born.
Im not a black tea drinker, Liptons was black tea growing up in the US and I did not like it. It is fine for sun/ice tea but still not my thing. But I visited Ireland and was exposed to Berry’s and I have to say that stuff is fantastic! But 2 minutes seeping is all it needs or else it gets bitter.
I visited a Tim Horton’s for the first time recently. It was in downtown Victoria and I have to say that it was an experience… Not a good one but at least I can say I have done it.
I have to say Tim Hortons has slipped. I’ve been in better versions of Tim’s in New York state where they are a little more like a mini cafeteria than the high traffic flow models the Canadian ones have become. At some point McDonald’s Canada took over coffee supply from Tim’s. Not sure who they are but Tim’s new coffee is not my cup of tea
Similar fond memories of growing up straddling English and American traditions on the wet Westcoast with English and Swedish grandparents.
My grandfather always had coffee brewing on the wood cookstove in his cabin. It was a metal 2 piece drip system. Always adding more hot water to the top as the day progressed. Like your example the first cups are the strongest. They had those white rogers sugar cubes and canned condensed milk from Pacific as creamer. Us grandkids would be bouncing off the walls from the caffeine and massive amounts of sugar most of the day.
Then at night with dinner it was Orange Pekoe tea with milk to finish the day. I’m surprised we got any sleep to be honest looking back on it.
Now living close to the US border I sometimes forget when I’m south tea is not such a normal thing in a restaurant and I get odd looks from those when ordering it. Usually they are the kind of place that serves Coke with breakfast though so I’m already in the wrong place for tea as it is.
For me Tea is the only thing I get from Tim’s too in the way of a London Fog. When it comes to Coffee Canadian McDonalds is my way to go. US McDonald’s coffee is something else terribly not enjoyable.
This is exactly why we didn’t want you to have independence. You clearly weren’t ready. I mean the whole Trump issue was one thing, but this… This is just monstrous.
What’s worse? A smart guy pretending to be dumb while tearing apart a country? Or a dumb guy pretending to be smart while tearing apart a country? Silver lining on the latter is at least you see all the stuff they’re too dumb to hide.
I see your point, though I don’t necessarily see it as a good thing. “Calculated” can be much more damaging depending on what the goal of the calculation is.
I’m British and I only drink coffee, but I don’t meet many other people who do. Gotta bear in mind that most people only drink either disgusting freeze-dried instant coffee, or posh boutique coffee from, at worst, Starbucks and, at best, a decent independent coffee place.
Watching Sorted Food (London based food channel on YouTube) it does seem that some Brits enjoy both or one over the other. The majority seem to drink just tea, the next group enjoys both but for different events, and the smallest group is coffee only.
For the middle group it’s people who have coffee in the morning and tea at noon/afternoon.
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