Post by Willow on Nov 2, 2004 20:13:13 GMT 9.5
Science tackles the perfect cuppa
By Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent
June 26, 2003
AFTER wasting decades of research on things like nuclear energy, medical cures and genetically modified food, British science has finally cemented its authority on a really useful topic – how to make the perfect cup of tea.
The Royal Society of Chemistry yesterday unveiled the results of a special research project into the creation and composition of the ideal cuppa.
Chemical engineer Andrew Stapley has studied "tea infusion" over the past three years and was commissioned in February to find the scientific answers to questions like "should the milk or the tea go into the cup first?"
Dr Stapley said his research covered cultural and regional differences in tea-making, as well as factors like the oxygen content of water, the optimal temperature for infusion, preferred brewing times and the virtues of tea bags versus loose leaves.
"In India, for instance, they tend to make tea in a completely different way," he told The Australian. "They throw the milk into the pot with the leaves and boil the whole thing up," a method which is probably aimed at health concerns and killing bacteria in unsafe milk.
"And I wouldn't want to say this too loudly in England but I think Australians and New Zealanders probably make tea better than the English because they seem to stick more closely to the little rituals which make such a difference." Dr Stapley concluded that the perfect cuppa required soft water, a pre-heated pot, three minutes' brewing and chilled milk.
But his key finding was that the milk should be poured into the cup before the tea.
Millions of tea-drinkers prefer to do it the other way around, arguing that putting the milk in last allows them more accurately to judge the final mixture and colour.
Writer George Orwell, for instance, wrote a 1946 article for London's Evening Standard vehemently arguing that the tea should go in first.
The problem with that method, according to Dr Stapley, is that the temperature of the milk rises more rapidly as the first drops of cool milk enter the full volume of hot tea.
"The protein molecules in the milk are denaturated . . . they are normally curled up foetus-like but if the temperature gets too hot they start to unravel and join up with each other.
"That changes the nature of the milk and gives it a slightly stale taste. It is much better to do it the other way around so that the first drops of tea are entering a larger volume of milk, and the rise in the milk's temperature is more gradual."
Dr Stapley, 34, specialises in food processing at Loughborough University in Leicestershire and began looking into the chemical processes involved in tea infusion and milk denaturation in 2000.
A mathematical modelling paper he published on the subject in The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture led the Royal Society of Chemistry to choose him for its study, which was released in central London on the eve of Orwell's 100th birthday.
The ground had been well prepared, however. Four years ago the British Standards Institute's 5000-word guide to making an ordinary cup of tea was awarded an Ig Nobel prize – the American plaudit for work that "cannot or should not be reproduced".
By Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent
June 26, 2003
AFTER wasting decades of research on things like nuclear energy, medical cures and genetically modified food, British science has finally cemented its authority on a really useful topic – how to make the perfect cup of tea.
The Royal Society of Chemistry yesterday unveiled the results of a special research project into the creation and composition of the ideal cuppa.
Chemical engineer Andrew Stapley has studied "tea infusion" over the past three years and was commissioned in February to find the scientific answers to questions like "should the milk or the tea go into the cup first?"
Dr Stapley said his research covered cultural and regional differences in tea-making, as well as factors like the oxygen content of water, the optimal temperature for infusion, preferred brewing times and the virtues of tea bags versus loose leaves.
"In India, for instance, they tend to make tea in a completely different way," he told The Australian. "They throw the milk into the pot with the leaves and boil the whole thing up," a method which is probably aimed at health concerns and killing bacteria in unsafe milk.
"And I wouldn't want to say this too loudly in England but I think Australians and New Zealanders probably make tea better than the English because they seem to stick more closely to the little rituals which make such a difference." Dr Stapley concluded that the perfect cuppa required soft water, a pre-heated pot, three minutes' brewing and chilled milk.
But his key finding was that the milk should be poured into the cup before the tea.
Millions of tea-drinkers prefer to do it the other way around, arguing that putting the milk in last allows them more accurately to judge the final mixture and colour.
Writer George Orwell, for instance, wrote a 1946 article for London's Evening Standard vehemently arguing that the tea should go in first.
The problem with that method, according to Dr Stapley, is that the temperature of the milk rises more rapidly as the first drops of cool milk enter the full volume of hot tea.
"The protein molecules in the milk are denaturated . . . they are normally curled up foetus-like but if the temperature gets too hot they start to unravel and join up with each other.
"That changes the nature of the milk and gives it a slightly stale taste. It is much better to do it the other way around so that the first drops of tea are entering a larger volume of milk, and the rise in the milk's temperature is more gradual."
Dr Stapley, 34, specialises in food processing at Loughborough University in Leicestershire and began looking into the chemical processes involved in tea infusion and milk denaturation in 2000.
A mathematical modelling paper he published on the subject in The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture led the Royal Society of Chemistry to choose him for its study, which was released in central London on the eve of Orwell's 100th birthday.
The ground had been well prepared, however. Four years ago the British Standards Institute's 5000-word guide to making an ordinary cup of tea was awarded an Ig Nobel prize – the American plaudit for work that "cannot or should not be reproduced".