Water and oxygen

Hey All,

I've heard that distilling water can harm its taste in teas, and I can see why this might be the case, as happens when boiling, but I am wondering if it is possible to re-oxygenate teas in the same way that a fish tank is? That is, could we conceivably just put water into a bottle with some air in it, shake vigorously, and have it work?

If not, are there any other decent ways to fix water that has been distilled or messed up through other means?

Aaron Hsu

Reply to
Aaron W. Hsu
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I don't think the problem is oxygen, or at least just oxygen. The problem is also that distilling takes all the minerals out of the water, and you often end up with kind of flat tasting tea.

You can re-mineralize water, either with little drops of concentrated minerals, or by storing or boiling the water with mineral stones (some tea shops use Mai Fan stones, a Chinese stone which I believe may be a type of granite)... but I think the best solution is really to not use distilled or reverse-osmosis water for making tea, if at all possible.

w
Reply to
invalid unparseable

While intrepidly exploring the bowels of USENET on Thursday, September

25, 2008, Will Yardley rolled initiative and posted the following:

That somewhat depends on your area. My folks live in Kentucky and the water there has a lot of calcium in it. The water that comes out of their reverse osmosis filter makes pretty good tea.

But if I make it from tap water, it tastes "heavy," for lack of a better descriptor.

Then again, this is all a matter of taste. Since I like neither asparagus nor eggplant, my wife says my taste is suspect.

Reply to
Derek

The home reverse osmosis system still leaves a lot of minerals behind. They get most of it, but the mineral content left is still much higher than that of distilled water.

If you had only distilled water, though, you could easily add a little bit of the overmineralized tap water and get something that was a nice balance.

You like tea, which is always a good sign.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I agree, except when the filter is very new there is a few grains of hardness that gets left in the RO Process. Also for those who don't know many tea shops and Starbucks use RO process and then use a remineralization cartridge which puts in about 5-6 grains of hardness back into the water for the PERFECT water to make tea and coffee. RO water is so much better than very hard water. Have a friend blindly provide you RO and hard water and make side by side tea with it and try it and see what you think. Also BTW what many stores sell (typically store brand labels) are actually RO filtered municipal water and many people buy that water to make tea with. Save yourself a LOT of money by putting in an undersink RO unit for $150, You will have about $50 worth of filtering cost per year for moderate usage, quite a bargain compared with buying water at the store.

Reply to
dasurber

Oxygen is needed to make a good tasting cup of tea because it bond with the essenial oils to produce flavour. If you shake water long enough, it will become re-oxygenated and therefore the ability to bond with the essential oils will be restored. However, water which is depleted in oxgyen such as distilled water, is often missing other important chemicals which will enchance the flavour of tea.

More info:

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Reply to
studiowebsites

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"Oxygen plays an important role in making a cup of tea because it helps to release the best flavours of tea. The essential oils in Black Tea that are responsible for much of the taste will only be released in boiling water. But the water is boiled for too long and the oxygen content is depleted and the result is that the essential oils cannot bind to the water molecules. It is therefore essential to get the best balance between heat and oxygen to create the a delicious cup of tea."

That would have to be one of the more extravagantly bogus expositions of this canard. Aside from the silly conception of solbilization mechanics, the whole oxygen assertion remains, AFAIK, entirely unsubstantiated. Countervailing evidence that distinguishes other effects (e.g., just the taste of degassed water, loss of multivalent ions through expulsion of CO2, etc.) welcome.

If someone wants to play... the solubility of oxygen in water at 100C is about zero, though it takes a while to get there. At 20C, it's about five times higher than at 90C. So just adding a little room-temp, fully aerated water to boiled water will produce substantially oxygenated hot water. See if you can taste the difference - I can't.

-DM

Reply to
DogMa

On Sep 29, 10:02 pm, DogMa snipped-for-privacy@worldnet.att.net> wrote, concerning the ignorant chemistry promulagated by

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Naturally this prompted me to visit the site.

Apart from agreeing DM's view on water oxygenation, I would add that the essential oils of black tea are NOT (as the site claims) responsible for much of the taste of tea. They are responsible for the Aroma - which is smelled not tasted.

The site itself is discrepant on several levels.

Information offered as fact is fanciful - this is the way tea myths are coined. There are well above (!) the average number of spelling mistakes and typos - this is sheer laziness. The site has no physical address or contact details - not only am I always very suspicious of the intentions of a site owner that is shy of owning up to an address, but in the UK this omission is illegal. As the site registrant (one Elizabeth Wilkinson) is a web designer, she should know the law. And more importantly, despite the site being a 'not for profit' .org domain it unashamedy promotes one commercial tea company for whom it can only be a rather regrettable front.

Nigel at Teacraft

Reply to
Nigel

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