Heating water for tea - in microwave?

On 03 Sep 2003, Holly E. Ordway climbed into "rec.food.drink.tea", opened the box of crayons and scribbled the following:

What you've experienced is the depletion of oxygen in the water - or so the arguement goes. And you've discovered first hand how important that can be to taste.

When water gets to a full rolling boil, the bubbles are not just caused by H20 getting agitated and becoming steam. They are also caused by the dissolved O2 in the water escaping. The more the water boils, the more dissolved oxygen gets away.

Now there are those who claim that microwave ovens are particularly guilty about causing the dissolved oxygen to escape the water. However, I have found that in a microwave oven, "hot enough to make tea" is not the same as "nuked until it boils." And, for as single cup of tea, it works fine for me with no noticeable loss of flavor.

Now, for a kettle's worth of water - you're probably going to find that it's quicker and easier to use a stove. Microwaves have been ridiculously slow, in my experience, when it comes to heating mass quantities of water.

Plus, I usually burn myself taking large hot things out of the microwave - but that's just my problem. :)

Derek

Heating in the microwave risks superheating the water - which then flash boils when it is disturbed.

As to the rest, it could be oxygen dissolved, or it could be that you prefer the taste of tea made with water that is not quite boiling. Assuming you can taste the difference - which unless you can do a double blind trial - is still open to question.

For a long time, I heated a mugful of water in a microwave; when I put a teabag in the hot water, there was a hissing sound and lots of small bubbles appearing near the teabag's surface. Is this superheating?

Is this a problem or just a matter of how the resulting drink tastes?

Yes but it can get worse - imagine those small bubbles growing to full rolling boil size bubbles, ejecting the teabag and 1/2 of the water in the mug.

On 03 Sep 2003, Jules Dubois climbed into "rec.food.drink.tea", opened the box of crayons and scribbled the following:

Here's an article on superheating water in microwaves. Oddly enough, it's from C|Net's "E-Hoax Central".

And, it would seem, if the water IS above the boiling point, you're actually overcooking the leaves which may have more to do with the flavor than the presence of dissolved gases.

Derek

On 03 Sep 2003, Ben Snyder climbed into "rec.food.drink.tea", opened the box of crayons and scribbled the following:

Mount St. Teabag? ;)

Derek

When I was in Switzerland a while ago I was very happy using a microwave to make tea, especially if you consider the alternatives in restaurants (poor tea and coffee). What I did then is using a tea bag, put it into a glass of water and bring it to the boil (probably Attila the Hun did the same). The tea bag acts as a condensation point and so there is no danger of overheating the water (which could be quite unpleasant). The water heated up quickly enough to get a short enough infusion. I must admit, I used milk with the tea. Why should there be any difference in heating water in a kettle or in the microwave? In both cases the water molecules are being agitated by an input of energy. Release of oxygen should be less with the microwave approach as the time of the water at high temperature is reduced by the quick input of energy. Superheating of water can be avoided by any defect in the surface of the container, only very smooth glass or ceramic would allow superheating to occur.

JB

It is more likely that you released the dissolved air from the water. With superheating you get pretty big bubbles of steam. Both phenomena are caused by the smooth surface of the vessel in which you're heating the water; there's no seed to form small vapour or gas bubbles. The supersaturation with gasses only causes a kind of a "soda effect" with small gasbubbles and a bit of foaming. Superheating (getting the water above boiling point) the water may cause the explosive formation of a vapour bubble, and the spreading of the contents of the vessel. This may cause severe burns. Prevention of superheating is easy. Don't switch on the microwave for a longer time than required. It also saves you on electricity. ;)

Peter

P.S. I guess I need to mention tea somewhere in the post to stay on topic for this newsgroup: TEA!

Thanks for all the comments! It looks like I'll be testing out microwaving the water, and I'll be careful about the superheating effect.

Any tips on how to eyeball the "really hot but not yet boiling" point, without shelling out for a thermometer? When it's just starting to steam? Lots of steam?

--Holly

On 03 Sep 2003, Holly E. Ordway climbed into "rec.food.drink.tea", opened the box of crayons and scribbled the following:

Short of sticking your finger in it, I'd vote for getting a cheep thermometer from the grocery store and doing some experimenting.

Besides, one should always have a thermometer in the kitchen. You'd be surprised how often they can come in handy. Of course, that assumes that one actually cooks. :)

Derek

Think 'instant read thermometer'. Very handy to have and they read in a few seconds. I've heard Taylor's digitals are available for 10-20 bucks but I'm happy with my supermarket analog I got for like 3 bucks

-ben

Get yourself a small clay teapot with a bamboo handle and a short snout that hugs the pot and nuke too your hearts content. I used the same one for decades. Mine had a clay infuser so you learned how to top off the pot so when adding the infuser with leaves it wouldn't cause the hot water to spill.

Jim

Right now I'm drinking a nice cup of tea made with water heated in the microwave. :) I'll play around some more with temperature, but so far so good!

So... why doesn't *everyone* heat their water in the microwave (assuming they have one)? It seems a heck of a lot easier to get consistent results compared to a kettle on the stove, but I'd heard absolutely zip about doing it that way.

--Holly

On 04 Sep 2003, Holly E. Ordway climbed into "rec.food.drink.tea", opened the box of crayons and scribbled the following:

Heh. Then you've not been reading the right posts.

Over the years (since I started following this group in 1997) there have been a number of posts wherein those who chose to heat their water in a microwave were "spurned" by the tea snobs of the group at the time.

Heaven forbid we make life more convenient for ourselves. :)

Derek

Electric kettles.

I played with the microwave for a long time, but it never felt really good to me. It was just hard to watch the cup for boiling, different microwaves, etc, etc.... I switched to a tea kettle at home. At work, a microwave was available and I used it (it was better than coffee flavored water that comes out of the coffee maker) but I never really liked it. I recently got an electric kettle that sits in my office, and I find that I drink more tea that way, and enjoy the process more.

I think for me microwaving water for tea takes away from the tea experience. I enjoy pouring water over tea leaves (or the tea bag). I enjoy the way it smells, I like the way the teapot or cup heats up. I enjoy waiting for the tea to brew, and pouring the tea off to another tea pot. I like the whole experience.

I don't think I'll ever go back to microwaving water for tea, just like I'll never go back to using just plain tap water. I'll do it if I have to (like at other people's houses), but I don't think I'll ever do it myself.

I should tell you that once I saw a co-worker put a tea bag in a cup and stick the whole thing in the microwave and soon there were sparks shooting off out of the cup. Apparently the staple holding the teabag together was a big enough metal object and it was above the water level that it started to spark. She was scared and has switched to coffee permanently (more tea for me!). So, watch it with tea bags in the microwave. =)

~me~

"Sara Hawk" wrote in news:i%J5b.352212$Ho3.52841@sccrnsc03:

Hm. Oddly enough, it didn't even occur to me to heat up the water *with the teabag in it* in the microwave. What I did (and plan on continuing) was to heat up just the water, and then when it was hot, pour it onto the tea in my ceramic teapot (and let it brew there). It strikes me that having the tea start in cold water and then warm up all the way to hot might very well brew it differently than having it start in hot water and brew as the water cools to drinking temperature.

So I got to enjoy the tea experience, minus the part that was "aiiii, the kettle is whistling, run at full speed to the kitchen to take it off the heat as soon as possible"!

--Holly

Electric _auto_shutoff_ kettles.

I have seen several varieties of electric water heaters: - with adjustable thermostate (older second hand models) - auto-shutoff when boiling - boil dry when left alone [not recommended]

The first type is great for a green-tea lover; the second type for a black tea lover. And easier to handle/control than a microwave.

Peter.

At home, I use the stove; a rolling boil is pretty for me to hard to miss. Not that I haven't missed it before, to the detriment of my cookware, of course.

At work, I use a Braun 1.6L 1500W electric teakettle. It boils 6-7 (8oz) cups of water -- plenty for my 8-cup Chatsford -- water in 7 minutes then turns itself off. I'm quite pleased with it.

Now that it takes half as long for me to boil water, I make tea twice as often. People give you funny looks when you carry teapots into meetings. Well, they give ME funny looks when I do it, anyway. ;-)

Hmm, I think I'll make a pot of Yunnan right now.

N.