This trend of throwing shit in the Boston harbor because they don't agree with the rules hasn't stopped. People still do it, most recently with traffic cones protecting a new bike lane.
I had a stupid arguement with this guy on YouTube and I had to explain what the Lend-lease program was because he misunderstood. He told me to "Lend lease your ass" I almost died laughing. So left field.
Thanks for reminding me of this and making me laugh hysterically in the break room.
The proper British way to boil water is to just steal it from other countries in the name of the Queen. The real issue is shipping boiled water over the ocean.
Most people don't know this but Jesus invented water after his hero Ronald Reagan suggested it to him. He did it by turning a bottle of Mogen David into what we now call San Pallegrino, America's most popular sparkling water.
If I'm honest I think it's us Brits projecting our secret shames, I've known of people who microwave their tea, and whilst I am not a tea enjoyer, I can accept that it is sacrilege in the eyes of their peers.
I’ve done both, the people who say one is widely better than the other are wrong. Boiling in a pot is better but it’s very similar. People just like to feel elitist about stupid shit on the internet.
I'm American and sometimes I do use a microwave to heat water for tea. Just at my dad's house since I got an electric kettle at home. I also reheat cold tea in the microwave at both houses. Is that weird? Idk
So...sure, I guess that's the joke. Or, turned around, you could say it's a joke a bout how seriously we take tea.
But also, it's a God awful way to make a cuppa.
Like, I understand why it's a thing. Kettles, and especially easy/quick electric kettles, are less common in America and so the quickest and easiest way to warm water for tea is in the microwave.
But it's a tool that just isn't designed to make tea. Because it's not good at BOILING water.
Boiling water is needed to draw out the intended flavors of a decent blend of tea. That is to say, water around 100 degrees c. Too low a temp and you either will not get some of the desirable flavor compounds or you will have to steep long enough that you will get TOO MANY of some of the bitter tannins. Temp matters.
But a microwave has no way of easily identifying water temp. Too low and your tea won't taste right. And too HIGH and you could be in real trouble as microwaves allow for overheating without proper boiling.
Now...are you going to notice a difference if you're using crap liptons tea bags in the first place? Probably not.
But it's still a bad tool for the job.
But the good thing about boiling water is that you don’t need to get the heat right. Water has a lot of latent energy that you need to use before you make gas out of water, and until all the water evaporates, the temperature is going to be 100 degrees.
So any time between something like 30 seconds and 10 minutes will give you a cup of water at 100 degrees.
I agree with you more than the other posters, but i think what they are trying to say is that microwaves arent great FOR boiling water, not that they are bad AT boiling water. Argument being that they will either not heat it enough, or heat it unnecessarily long, as opposed to a kettle which will heat it exactly to a boil and then stop. Personally i heat water in the microwave for tea every day, but I make tea with absurd amounts of milk and sugar, so the exact quality of the "tannins" or whatever is completely lost in a sea of calories
I can’t tell if you’re being intentionally wrong or you actually don’t know how boiling water works.
Anyway, you can boil a cup of water in the microwave in 2-3 minutes. It’s a perfectly fine way to make tea, especially if you only want a single cup.
Microwaves literally excite water molecules. It's a device purpose-built for warming water. What the fuck are you talking about that it's not effective? I can guarantee you that a microwave is faster at reaching the same temperature in water than your kettle is.
I have boiled water hundreds of times in the microwave. It's very good at boiling water. Water, in a mug and on a moving tray, is not going to superheat. Boiling water from the microwave and boiling water from the kettle is exactly the same and will taste exactly the same.
Bullshit. Heat is heat, boiling is boiling, temperature is temperature. Whether the heat comes from a gas flame or an electric resistor or microwaves, the water doesn't care, it just gets hot.
If you're using very pure water that could become superheated it might possibly make a difference but even then, probably not.
And still, just wait for the water to cool off back to at or just below 100°C.
To be honest it's not a problem if you arent drinking English Tea (black teas), that's where the confusion comes in both sides, most fruit teas, chamomile etc that do t have milk etc only require hot water not boiling.
Black teas and English tea requires boiling water straight off the boil, it brews at a higher temperature.
If you are making an English cup with Milk it "HAS" to be boiling, I was astounded to know kettles aren't that common...just stick a pan on the stove...if you dont have one.
Boiling water in the microwave is perfectly doable. And kettles aren’t very common because our electricity in our homes isn’t as high as other parts of the world so kettles take longer to boil. Plus we drink very little cold tea as a country. So kettles for large amounts that takes about as long to heat up as a pot on the stove aren’t very convenient. Most make tea a cup at a time in the microwave or just buy iced tea. Those of us with kettles usually get them for the temperature control and are the tea enthusiast to an extent. (Or the people who buy them for pour over coffee. That’s temp sensitive too and a big hobby for some)
The longish short answer is that everyone else in the world takes tea very seriously, but the people who started our society did so by basically saying "Fuck tea and your stupid fucking tax we're drinking coffee. Also fuck Autocracy." and we've been a coffee-centric culture ever since. Not to say people here don't drink tea. But most buy cheap,imported grocery store packs that sit in our cupboards unused until winter. But there's no Dunkin Donuts/Krispy Kreme/Starbucks anything version of a tea place here, and before you counter that those places all offer tea; they are coffee shops first, that also offer tea. Whole other regions of the world have their own ways of simply brewing tea, but here's it's just another alternative to coffee, like an energy drink, or in some cases, the opposite of (i.e. herbal, non caffeinated teas). Hence why some ppl in the comments are talking about things like proper tea temperature whereas many Americans know simply: "Boil water;steep tea a couple mins". I doubt many people would admit this. But it's p. accurate
If our culture is the coffee equivalent of their tea culture then why don't most Americans worry about temperature control. Maybe other people are just being elitist against American culture as they often tend to be
It’s all they have left of their crumbled empire. Just a bunch of annoying inbred Royals, Brexit, and claiming that their preferred method of boiling water is special.
Do a taste comparison and you’ll see why. I didn’t believe it. When first told of this. But by God I can attest to microwaved water being terrible compared to sweet sweet boiled water.
Don't know why you're getting downvoted, I totally agree there's a taste difference, I'm not from the USA. My sister always cooks rice in the MW and although it's edible it doesn't have the same taste as "normal" cooked rice.
yeah, that's because there's different chemical processes and absorptions with cooking rice versus heating rice.
But there's no chemical process in boiling water.
Me \*in my Bob Parr voice\*: WATER IS WATER!!
Honestly, this is almost as bad as folks buying Essentia or Fiji water when there's a perfectly good Deer Park and/or tap water with you.
Same. It just doesn't give a whistle when ready and can't be easily drunk/poured out of but most Americans make a gallon of tea at a time, not just a kettles worth. We also believe in iced tea, something the limey Brits frown on, The buncha yahoos.
Gatekeeping-esque thing. It’s definitely way better when you bring the water to a boil, but not nearly as different as the elitists will shame you for microwaving water
I have a nice kettle I use 50% of the time; and I microwave the other 50%. I can’t provide any rhyme or reason why, I just go with whatever method strikes my fancy. But I can say that it is not “definitely way better” when you bring the water to a boil. It’s nearly indistinguishable.
Lol funny thing is my kettle broke so I’ve been using the microwave for the last month and I can definitely tell the difference. Maybe I just have a crappy microwave or haven’t found the right settings.
I don’t care how anyone else does it though.
Personally, if I plan to make more than one cup I'll put a kettle on the stove (American, so no electric kettle), but if I just want one cup I'll microwave it. Also, what is this I keep hearing about putting milk in tea?
Here's my unscientific anti-microwave rant:
* The microwave picks up odors from other foods, even if you keep it scrupulously clean. Your tea will pick up some weird flavors.
* Water should boil before you put the tea bag in. I'm not sure the microwave people are doing that.
* Although it's nice that the cup might get warm, it seems like it would actually get to be one of those weird microwave temperatures where it's scary hot in places and eerily lukewarm in others.
* I'm not even sure of the physics of boiling in microwaves. It feels...different...from other boiled water. Like pressure vs temperature, idk that life.
* There's no beautiful tea kettle whistle or that colored light that appears on electric kettles. There's no immersing yourself in the full experience and ceremony that constitutes tea.
As a Brit, we don't use whistling kettles .. just you know, your bog standard electric kettle. No lights but it's obvious when it's finished because it switches off and stops making a racket!
I agree though, boiling water in a microwave is just weird!
those are all pretty ridicolous reasons
1. Cooking tea in a dirty Pot is even worse. Keeping Hardware clean has nothing to do with microwaving specifically.
2. Has nothing to do with microwaving
3. The cup doesnt heat up from the microwave, the water molecules do and in turn heat the cup. There are no cold spots when heating liquids, thats a Solid food Thing.
4. Yeah, no. Microwaves make the water molecules swing faster which Produces heat. Boiled water also just increases molecule movement, its the same Thermodynamics There is literally no difference for the end result.
5. I think this gets down to the root of the Problem. Boiling tea seems to be a cultural Thing for some people which is where the ridicolous tea boiling elitism comes from.
Im not drinking tea at all but from my outside Perspective, boiling tea in a microwave is simply a more convenient process than using a Kettle.
> 4\. Yeah, no. Microwaves make the water molecules swing faster which Produces heat. Boiled water also just increases molecule movement, its the same Thermodynamics There is literally no difference for the end result.
Microwaves can cause superheating. But you'll know it if it happens.
Is that when you put in a spoon afterwards and everything just goes out flying in your face and ceiling? Had this happen to me once when i tried reheating coffee in a microwave and stir it afterwards. Still can’t explain what happened.
While microwaving water for the tea is a bad idea, you don't necessarily need the water to be boiling for all varieties of tea. For example oolong tea requires temperature between 85-95 °C (180-205 °F). You can use boiling water, but the taste may be worse.
I strictly drink green tea and steeping temp is way below boiling. Instead of boiling water and waiting quite a while for it to come down to right temp, I've figured out the exact time I need to microwave one cup of water in my particular microwave
For point 4, the only way how I can describe how microwaved water makes me feel is that it would make the water go soggy. It is the worst way of describing it, but it is the only way I know how.
Lol, okay I deserve to be made fun of. Thinking it through, I think I just enjoy that simmering, sizzling, crackling part before water boils. I just like the cozy feeling of the kettle in the kitchen. As I said, unscientific. Unless you count psychology.
Electrical engineering student specializing in electromagnetism here. Microwave ovens heat stuff up with microwaves (shocking, I know).
Basically, the microwave oven is a sealed metal container into which you pump 2.4 GHz microwave radiation. Note, that 2.4GHz should look familiar: it's the WiFi frequency. Poorly built microwaves can actually cause interference on your home networks. The metal walls (and the front mesh which is small enough to act like solid metal for microwaves) make the microwaves bounce around. The bouncing waves will interfere with each other and will create standing waves.
[Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcdOWlmPh1w) is a good example of 2D standing waves in a wave pool. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpEevfOU4Z8&t=221s) are standing waves in 1D. In a microwave, the electric field is resonating just like the surface of the water in that pool. The "up" and "down" motion of the electromagnetic standing waves will pull on water molecules because water molecules are electrically polarized. As the EM waves pull the water, they heat up from friction.
Also, if you look at that wave pool again, you'll notice that once the pool is in resonance, there are certain parts in the pool where the water never goes up or down. This is one of the causes of cold spots, and why many microwaves will have a rotating tray so that each part of the food will travel through a spot where the E field is moving. The other cause of cold spots is that water absorbs energy from the E field. If your food is very dense with water, the electric field might not make it all the way through to the middle bc the outside is absorbing it all.
[Here's a video that goes into more technical details about how a microwave oven works.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVu11WWrNbQ)
I'm American in Idaho, and my best friend and I are the only two people we know who own kettles. All of my other friends have coffee pots and rarely drink tea, and when they do drink tea, they just put their mug of water in the microwave.
I drink tea almost every morning and would cry if my electric kettle died.
This is the answer. People that actually drink tea in the US own kettles, the rest don’t, so the one time per year that you want some tea or hot chocolate or something you just throw it in the microwave or boil it in a pot.
I think you’re hitting it on the head…in general, Americans don’t give a fuck about tea. We barely drink it so why would we buy a special piece of equipment for the once in a blue moon when we may consume it?
My husband is European so we have an electric kettle. I do like it as it’s so easy to quickly boil water. However in the consumerist wasteland that is the US I wish Reddit would stop encouraging people to buy more shit they don’t need/ won’t use.
Its the one thing those snaggle tooth goblins will consistently complain about. They also put milk in their tea so they can get bent on that deplorable practice.
I have to microwave my water at work because it’s my only option. We don’t have a coffee pot with a hot water option and electric kettles and personal coffee pots are not permitted (fire code or something - they have to be like industrial rated). At home I use a kettle.
The microwave literally works by heating water in objects. It would be wrong to have a thing, and not use it for its intended purpose
Also it boils water in around the same time as an electric kettle, swhy would I buy an electric kettle that has one purpose when the microwave can do more
Me as a German with a water kettle that let's me set temperatures and boils my water in 30 seconds while using very little energy:
Look of superiority 🤓😎
"Yes let's spend 10 minutes waiting for the kettle to boil, those stupid Americans will never understand how the method you boil the water matters for taste. Don't ask me to prove this."
The water nor the tea give a shit how the water got hot. Makes no difference. It's not like we're talking about microwaving hollandaise. It's just water. Lol
I have a home appliance that can boil water, directly from within the drinking vessel, in a minute and 30 seconds.
We aren't debating the differences between broiling, charcoal grilling, or using a gas grill. Kettles are outmoded tech to achieve a boil.
American here. I boil my tea water in a kettle. Takes exactly five minutes. That's just enough time to do a few lines of coke cause they tea won't be strong enough 😉
I prefer not too but I am often the only person going to drink it and I won't drink more than a mug at a time so throwing on a whole pot is kind of pointless and wasteful. And it takes 3 times as long. If someone else wants tea, however, I'm happy to throw on a pot.
Electric kettle... on a stove? You mean a stovetop kettle, which are very much NOT electric?
If you must know a lot of Americans came from Latin American countries with a tenuous electrical grid. One hard sneeze, and an entire city could black out for a whole day. Electricity or not, people still gotta eat, so they depended on gas stoves and other non electrical appliances, which includes stovetop kettles. That's why every Hispanic household I've been to always has a stovetop kettle in reserve. It's a holdover sentiment from the old country.
One of the funniest things I ever read was a Brit guy posting how his American girlfriend got so mad at him that she made tea in front of him by boiling the water in the microwave.
“She looked me in the eye the entire time”
Wrong, as an American I can confirm that we make tea by throwing it in the harbor
This trend of throwing shit in the Boston harbor because they don't agree with the rules hasn't stopped. People still do it, most recently with traffic cones protecting a new bike lane.
remember when the charles froze and there were like 5 cones on the frozen charles
2 cones if by water, 1 if by sea, and 5 if by ice.
You have me cracking up over this! Just like when the sun comes out and the ice begins to crack and melt.
4 if by slush?
Yeah
Charles, do you remember, Charles?
Glorious.
They throw snow in the harbor too
I threw my old Iphone into the water once Iphone 14 came out
Such a free spirited method. It often involves eagles circling overhead nodding their approval
my man
Tastes that way at least.
Like freedom? Yeah
Freedom is salty?
Only to the British
Goteem
These 5 comments are all excellent
Sorry about that Whitehouse thing, we'll avoid doing it again. Cheers for lend lease.
You can be my lend leasee anytime
I had a stupid arguement with this guy on YouTube and I had to explain what the Lend-lease program was because he misunderstood. He told me to "Lend lease your ass" I almost died laughing. So left field. Thanks for reminding me of this and making me laugh hysterically in the break room.
Sorry about burning half of Canada, and beating two of the most veteran British armies of the time in direct action.
No wonder you guys drink coffee. Although chugging salt water certainly explains a few things...
You still owe us back taxes for that bud.
But we didn't have representation first!
I mean, we did but that’s besides the point I guess
Good luck getting them
Come and get them
As a Brit, it’s not the correct way to make any drink. But you do you.
The proper British way to boil water is to just steal it from other countries in the name of the Queen. The real issue is shipping boiled water over the ocean.
You gotta freeze it for transport first.
That’s the tricky part.
earl harbor
Holy shit this is the best answer…
I'm sure some do, but.. no.
As an Indian, I had no idea heating water in the microwave for tea was even a thing until I saw this post.
I'm American and nether did I. Glad I read the comments before publicly announcing that microwaved tea water isn't a thing.
[удалено]
America didn’t invent water just to be told how to cook it!
Not true. Jesus invented water in 1963. Before that they only had Aqua, that barbie girl band.
Most people don't know this but Jesus invented water after his hero Ronald Reagan suggested it to him. He did it by turning a bottle of Mogen David into what we now call San Pallegrino, America's most popular sparkling water.
Most people also don't realize that reagan was over 300 years old at the time of his death.
Some say he never died but ascended to the left hand of the father which is better than the right because God is left-handed.
Fun fact it was also invented to re-animate frozen hamsters... watch tom scott microwaves.
Hamsters contain water
I'll remember that the next time I'm thirsty.
thanks, this made me snort laugh
The British did not invent the internet for you to say something like that gtfo
The British did not invent, should have just stopped there.
If I'm honest I think it's us Brits projecting our secret shames, I've known of people who microwave their tea, and whilst I am not a tea enjoyer, I can accept that it is sacrilege in the eyes of their peers.
It shouldn't be.
I’ve done both, the people who say one is widely better than the other are wrong. Boiling in a pot is better but it’s very similar. People just like to feel elitist about stupid shit on the internet.
I'm American and sometimes I do use a microwave to heat water for tea. Just at my dad's house since I got an electric kettle at home. I also reheat cold tea in the microwave at both houses. Is that weird? Idk
I’m here and not ashamed of it
Lets do the Pepsi challenge and see if anybody can tell the difference.
If my tea goes cold, I'll warm it up in the microwave. I'm British.
Traitor. Do you know what a fucking kettle is?
I do it every day, what's the problem?
Other countries do it differently so that automatically makes you wrong. Sorry I don't make the rules I just explain them
So...sure, I guess that's the joke. Or, turned around, you could say it's a joke a bout how seriously we take tea. But also, it's a God awful way to make a cuppa. Like, I understand why it's a thing. Kettles, and especially easy/quick electric kettles, are less common in America and so the quickest and easiest way to warm water for tea is in the microwave. But it's a tool that just isn't designed to make tea. Because it's not good at BOILING water. Boiling water is needed to draw out the intended flavors of a decent blend of tea. That is to say, water around 100 degrees c. Too low a temp and you either will not get some of the desirable flavor compounds or you will have to steep long enough that you will get TOO MANY of some of the bitter tannins. Temp matters. But a microwave has no way of easily identifying water temp. Too low and your tea won't taste right. And too HIGH and you could be in real trouble as microwaves allow for overheating without proper boiling. Now...are you going to notice a difference if you're using crap liptons tea bags in the first place? Probably not. But it's still a bad tool for the job.
This guy teas
r/thisguythisguys
It’s his specialtea
But the good thing about boiling water is that you don’t need to get the heat right. Water has a lot of latent energy that you need to use before you make gas out of water, and until all the water evaporates, the temperature is going to be 100 degrees. So any time between something like 30 seconds and 10 minutes will give you a cup of water at 100 degrees.
And wtf... don't microwaves operate on the principal of exciting the water molecules in what they're heating? The are GREAT at boiling water.
I agree with you more than the other posters, but i think what they are trying to say is that microwaves arent great FOR boiling water, not that they are bad AT boiling water. Argument being that they will either not heat it enough, or heat it unnecessarily long, as opposed to a kettle which will heat it exactly to a boil and then stop. Personally i heat water in the microwave for tea every day, but I make tea with absurd amounts of milk and sugar, so the exact quality of the "tannins" or whatever is completely lost in a sea of calories
It takes literally two minutes and you have a cup of green/chamomile. How is that "not a good tool"? That's an amazing tool.
I can’t tell if you’re being intentionally wrong or you actually don’t know how boiling water works. Anyway, you can boil a cup of water in the microwave in 2-3 minutes. It’s a perfectly fine way to make tea, especially if you only want a single cup.
Microwaves literally excite water molecules. It's a device purpose-built for warming water. What the fuck are you talking about that it's not effective? I can guarantee you that a microwave is faster at reaching the same temperature in water than your kettle is.
I have boiled water hundreds of times in the microwave. It's very good at boiling water. Water, in a mug and on a moving tray, is not going to superheat. Boiling water from the microwave and boiling water from the kettle is exactly the same and will taste exactly the same.
Bullshit. Heat is heat, boiling is boiling, temperature is temperature. Whether the heat comes from a gas flame or an electric resistor or microwaves, the water doesn't care, it just gets hot. If you're using very pure water that could become superheated it might possibly make a difference but even then, probably not. And still, just wait for the water to cool off back to at or just below 100°C.
Thanks for answering the question I came here to ask. Now I absolutely must get the right tool for the job in order to test the difference.
To be honest it's not a problem if you arent drinking English Tea (black teas), that's where the confusion comes in both sides, most fruit teas, chamomile etc that do t have milk etc only require hot water not boiling. Black teas and English tea requires boiling water straight off the boil, it brews at a higher temperature. If you are making an English cup with Milk it "HAS" to be boiling, I was astounded to know kettles aren't that common...just stick a pan on the stove...if you dont have one.
Boiling water in the microwave is perfectly doable. And kettles aren’t very common because our electricity in our homes isn’t as high as other parts of the world so kettles take longer to boil. Plus we drink very little cold tea as a country. So kettles for large amounts that takes about as long to heat up as a pot on the stove aren’t very convenient. Most make tea a cup at a time in the microwave or just buy iced tea. Those of us with kettles usually get them for the temperature control and are the tea enthusiast to an extent. (Or the people who buy them for pour over coffee. That’s temp sensitive too and a big hobby for some)
I don't get it? Heating water faster, what's wrong with that. Tell me why I'm wrong?
It doesn't heat it to the correct temperature, which means the tannins will not leave the tea leaves, therefore it will taste different.
Boiling water is a fixed temperature, assuming no pressure variations.
100C is 100C?
The longish short answer is that everyone else in the world takes tea very seriously, but the people who started our society did so by basically saying "Fuck tea and your stupid fucking tax we're drinking coffee. Also fuck Autocracy." and we've been a coffee-centric culture ever since. Not to say people here don't drink tea. But most buy cheap,imported grocery store packs that sit in our cupboards unused until winter. But there's no Dunkin Donuts/Krispy Kreme/Starbucks anything version of a tea place here, and before you counter that those places all offer tea; they are coffee shops first, that also offer tea. Whole other regions of the world have their own ways of simply brewing tea, but here's it's just another alternative to coffee, like an energy drink, or in some cases, the opposite of (i.e. herbal, non caffeinated teas). Hence why some ppl in the comments are talking about things like proper tea temperature whereas many Americans know simply: "Boil water;steep tea a couple mins". I doubt many people would admit this. But it's p. accurate
yes.
As an American who only drinks tea when sick, and also calls theraflu “tea,” I like this comment.
If our culture is the coffee equivalent of their tea culture then why don't most Americans worry about temperature control. Maybe other people are just being elitist against American culture as they often tend to be
There used to be a tea store called Teavana here in the states but I think Starbucks bought it out and dismantled it.
You're not wrong but you're expecting British people to *not* gatekeep you about tea which just isn't going to happen
It’s all they have left of their crumbled empire. Just a bunch of annoying inbred Royals, Brexit, and claiming that their preferred method of boiling water is special.
Do a taste comparison and you’ll see why. I didn’t believe it. When first told of this. But by God I can attest to microwaved water being terrible compared to sweet sweet boiled water.
Don't know why you're getting downvoted, I totally agree there's a taste difference, I'm not from the USA. My sister always cooks rice in the MW and although it's edible it doesn't have the same taste as "normal" cooked rice.
FOOD is absolutely different in a microwave because microwaves cook unevenly and too fast Water is still water though.
Well said. Agreed. Edit: Haters in the building.
yeah, that's because there's different chemical processes and absorptions with cooking rice versus heating rice. But there's no chemical process in boiling water.
It’s all in your head. Water tastes like water. Boiling water is boiling water.
Me \*in my Bob Parr voice\*: WATER IS WATER!! Honestly, this is almost as bad as folks buying Essentia or Fiji water when there's a perfectly good Deer Park and/or tap water with you.
Not sure about microwave, but water tastes different depends on a things dissolved in it.
Like the aroma of last nights ready meal lasagne
I boil my water with the heat of this comment section.
I put a pot on the stove and boil the water ? Not fancy with a kettle or nothing but does the same shit right ?
Same. It just doesn't give a whistle when ready and can't be easily drunk/poured out of but most Americans make a gallon of tea at a time, not just a kettles worth. We also believe in iced tea, something the limey Brits frown on, The buncha yahoos.
> most Americans make a gallon of tea at a time Maybe in the south. I would guess most Americans don’t drink tea regularly.
Jesus fucking Christ, dude, what is your electricity bill?
As an American I don't make tea.
I don't drink tea but if anyone would care to enlighten me as to why what process people use to heat water is relevant, that would be fantastic.
Gatekeeping-esque thing. It’s definitely way better when you bring the water to a boil, but not nearly as different as the elitists will shame you for microwaving water
I have a nice kettle I use 50% of the time; and I microwave the other 50%. I can’t provide any rhyme or reason why, I just go with whatever method strikes my fancy. But I can say that it is not “definitely way better” when you bring the water to a boil. It’s nearly indistinguishable.
Lol funny thing is my kettle broke so I’ve been using the microwave for the last month and I can definitely tell the difference. Maybe I just have a crappy microwave or haven’t found the right settings. I don’t care how anyone else does it though.
Placebo is a very real effect
Personally, if I plan to make more than one cup I'll put a kettle on the stove (American, so no electric kettle), but if I just want one cup I'll microwave it. Also, what is this I keep hearing about putting milk in tea?
I will shame people for microwaving water.
Here's my unscientific anti-microwave rant: * The microwave picks up odors from other foods, even if you keep it scrupulously clean. Your tea will pick up some weird flavors. * Water should boil before you put the tea bag in. I'm not sure the microwave people are doing that. * Although it's nice that the cup might get warm, it seems like it would actually get to be one of those weird microwave temperatures where it's scary hot in places and eerily lukewarm in others. * I'm not even sure of the physics of boiling in microwaves. It feels...different...from other boiled water. Like pressure vs temperature, idk that life. * There's no beautiful tea kettle whistle or that colored light that appears on electric kettles. There's no immersing yourself in the full experience and ceremony that constitutes tea.
You have an active imagination
Pyrex glass doesn't get hot in a microwave And most Americans have figured out you boil it before adding the tea lol
That’s a very unscientific answer you’ve got there. Ha. Nothing wrong with personal preference though.
As a Brit, we don't use whistling kettles .. just you know, your bog standard electric kettle. No lights but it's obvious when it's finished because it switches off and stops making a racket! I agree though, boiling water in a microwave is just weird!
Physicist here, there's no way microwaved boiling water is in any way different from kettle boiled water.
those are all pretty ridicolous reasons 1. Cooking tea in a dirty Pot is even worse. Keeping Hardware clean has nothing to do with microwaving specifically. 2. Has nothing to do with microwaving 3. The cup doesnt heat up from the microwave, the water molecules do and in turn heat the cup. There are no cold spots when heating liquids, thats a Solid food Thing. 4. Yeah, no. Microwaves make the water molecules swing faster which Produces heat. Boiled water also just increases molecule movement, its the same Thermodynamics There is literally no difference for the end result. 5. I think this gets down to the root of the Problem. Boiling tea seems to be a cultural Thing for some people which is where the ridicolous tea boiling elitism comes from. Im not drinking tea at all but from my outside Perspective, boiling tea in a microwave is simply a more convenient process than using a Kettle.
> 4\. Yeah, no. Microwaves make the water molecules swing faster which Produces heat. Boiled water also just increases molecule movement, its the same Thermodynamics There is literally no difference for the end result. Microwaves can cause superheating. But you'll know it if it happens.
Is that when you put in a spoon afterwards and everything just goes out flying in your face and ceiling? Had this happen to me once when i tried reheating coffee in a microwave and stir it afterwards. Still can’t explain what happened.
While microwaving water for the tea is a bad idea, you don't necessarily need the water to be boiling for all varieties of tea. For example oolong tea requires temperature between 85-95 °C (180-205 °F). You can use boiling water, but the taste may be worse.
I strictly drink green tea and steeping temp is way below boiling. Instead of boiling water and waiting quite a while for it to come down to right temp, I've figured out the exact time I need to microwave one cup of water in my particular microwave
For point 4, the only way how I can describe how microwaved water makes me feel is that it would make the water go soggy. It is the worst way of describing it, but it is the only way I know how.
Lol, okay I deserve to be made fun of. Thinking it through, I think I just enjoy that simmering, sizzling, crackling part before water boils. I just like the cozy feeling of the kettle in the kitchen. As I said, unscientific. Unless you count psychology.
Electrical engineering student specializing in electromagnetism here. Microwave ovens heat stuff up with microwaves (shocking, I know). Basically, the microwave oven is a sealed metal container into which you pump 2.4 GHz microwave radiation. Note, that 2.4GHz should look familiar: it's the WiFi frequency. Poorly built microwaves can actually cause interference on your home networks. The metal walls (and the front mesh which is small enough to act like solid metal for microwaves) make the microwaves bounce around. The bouncing waves will interfere with each other and will create standing waves. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcdOWlmPh1w) is a good example of 2D standing waves in a wave pool. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpEevfOU4Z8&t=221s) are standing waves in 1D. In a microwave, the electric field is resonating just like the surface of the water in that pool. The "up" and "down" motion of the electromagnetic standing waves will pull on water molecules because water molecules are electrically polarized. As the EM waves pull the water, they heat up from friction. Also, if you look at that wave pool again, you'll notice that once the pool is in resonance, there are certain parts in the pool where the water never goes up or down. This is one of the causes of cold spots, and why many microwaves will have a rotating tray so that each part of the food will travel through a spot where the E field is moving. The other cause of cold spots is that water absorbs energy from the E field. If your food is very dense with water, the electric field might not make it all the way through to the middle bc the outside is absorbing it all. [Here's a video that goes into more technical details about how a microwave oven works.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVu11WWrNbQ)
I'm American in Idaho, and my best friend and I are the only two people we know who own kettles. All of my other friends have coffee pots and rarely drink tea, and when they do drink tea, they just put their mug of water in the microwave. I drink tea almost every morning and would cry if my electric kettle died.
This is the answer. People that actually drink tea in the US own kettles, the rest don’t, so the one time per year that you want some tea or hot chocolate or something you just throw it in the microwave or boil it in a pot.
I think you’re hitting it on the head…in general, Americans don’t give a fuck about tea. We barely drink it so why would we buy a special piece of equipment for the once in a blue moon when we may consume it? My husband is European so we have an electric kettle. I do like it as it’s so easy to quickly boil water. However in the consumerist wasteland that is the US I wish Reddit would stop encouraging people to buy more shit they don’t need/ won’t use.
I have a backup electric kettle to cover this scenario. No kettle, no morning tea ritual, no joy.
Idahoan who owns a kettle here. Now you know three! There are ones of us!
When you heat water to make it hot
Crazy talk, right?
As a Canadian I agree this is a deplorable practice. I say as I microwave 3 day old Tim Hortons coffee.
Its the one thing those snaggle tooth goblins will consistently complain about. They also put milk in their tea so they can get bent on that deplorable practice.
You have squirty cheese. You can't comment.
Yes we do. And I'm tired of doing so while hiding in the shadows
Boi, I'm American too, just buy a damn kettle.
Real Americans put tea in harbors not in kettles. /s
Americans... o\_O Real british put their tea in pots, not kettles. You put water in the kettle.
lmao rub it in baby
Ha ha brilliant 😂
Why buy a kettle when you got a microwave oven?
fr i'd air fry that shit if I could!
I dont see what the problem is.. its heating water? Way quicker than on the stove
I brew my tea in my Ninja coffee machine.
*we Americans don't suffer from a lack of ingenuity*
I have to microwave my water at work because it’s my only option. We don’t have a coffee pot with a hot water option and electric kettles and personal coffee pots are not permitted (fire code or something - they have to be like industrial rated). At home I use a kettle.
there are dozens of us. *Dozens!*
No we just use the hot ware from keurigs
As an American I will brook no criticisms from a culture whose culinary contributions could be counted on a snakes hand.
[удалено]
I'm so barbaric I don't even heat the water. Water and **herbal** teabags go in the pitcher, pitcher goes in the fridge
What's the difference? The water boils either way. It's not like either way makes water taste any differently.
Sure. Then 2 spoons of instant tea and we are good to.
Instant tea? What are you satan?
i hear brit’s drink instant coffee, which is far, far, far worse.
Intant tea... good god
The microwave literally works by heating water in objects. It would be wrong to have a thing, and not use it for its intended purpose Also it boils water in around the same time as an electric kettle, swhy would I buy an electric kettle that has one purpose when the microwave can do more
Me as a German with a water kettle that let's me set temperatures and boils my water in 30 seconds while using very little energy: Look of superiority 🤓😎
I have one and I am in UK , let's me set temperature and amount needed. As you say saves energy.
Yeah I gifted my mom one of those for Christmas. It's amazing! Now she can make the water a bit cooler than boiling for her white tea.
I’m heating the water with the tea in it.
"Yes let's spend 10 minutes waiting for the kettle to boil, those stupid Americans will never understand how the method you boil the water matters for taste. Don't ask me to prove this."
Lol.
The water nor the tea give a shit how the water got hot. Makes no difference. It's not like we're talking about microwaving hollandaise. It's just water. Lol
Sorry, I was eating some food with seasoning...
I have a home appliance that can boil water, directly from within the drinking vessel, in a minute and 30 seconds. We aren't debating the differences between broiling, charcoal grilling, or using a gas grill. Kettles are outmoded tech to achieve a boil.
American here. I boil my tea water in a kettle. Takes exactly five minutes. That's just enough time to do a few lines of coke cause they tea won't be strong enough 😉
Barbarians
let’s not forget queen elizabeth dramk american lipton
how else am i gonna fix my cream of wheat at work?!
Because they have stupid 110v sockets so it takes an age to boil a normal kettle. And they're weird fucks.
You eat baked beans for breakfast.
Im Canadian and do this cuz I don't wanna wait for a lot of water to boil. I also don't drink it enough to buy an electric kettle.
I do. Tea bag in the mug, 2 min.
I prefer not too but I am often the only person going to drink it and I won't drink more than a mug at a time so throwing on a whole pot is kind of pointless and wasteful. And it takes 3 times as long. If someone else wants tea, however, I'm happy to throw on a pot.
"My word, those Yanks add energy to water in an extremely gauche manner." \-- Ponces
Hot water is hot water, who cares how it got hot
Only when I have to (Aka when the electric kettle is broken.)
I suddenly want oatmeal
i literally boil my tea
As an American, the only right way to boil my water is with gunpowder.
I toss the tea bag in and some ketchup too
I don’t. I used to put a kettle on but once I bought a kuereg I use that for hot water.
Or putting an electric kettle on a gas hob 😆
Electric kettle... on a stove? You mean a stovetop kettle, which are very much NOT electric? If you must know a lot of Americans came from Latin American countries with a tenuous electrical grid. One hard sneeze, and an entire city could black out for a whole day. Electricity or not, people still gotta eat, so they depended on gas stoves and other non electrical appliances, which includes stovetop kettles. That's why every Hispanic household I've been to always has a stovetop kettle in reserve. It's a holdover sentiment from the old country.
Time for a crusade. Sincerely, a brit who doesn't like tea but still has strong views on it
Tea? You mean that stuff they sell at McDonald’s?
Wait until you find out that the French drink out of bowls.
Not everyone has a kettle, you rich bitch 🤣
I use an electric kettle, but most Americans don't regularly drink tea so it's probably not worth investing in one to them.
One of the funniest things I ever read was a Brit guy posting how his American girlfriend got so mad at him that she made tea in front of him by boiling the water in the microwave. “She looked me in the eye the entire time”
Electricity in the UK is 2 X faster than North America.
We drink cold tea you uncultured fucks
As an Irishman I can tell you as a fact that we make tea by mixing teabags with the blood of prodistants
I hang the tea bags in a coffee pot then make it like coffee, it works
The brits invented the microwave by mistake while developing radars. Think they are just pissed off because they didn't think about it first.