A controversy over adding lemon and salt to tea

Facebook tea groups are wrapping up a phase of discussion about the theme of adding lemon or salt to tea, a recommendation from a recent book on tea.

This relates to Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, by Michelle Francl. Basically salt is supposed to offset astringency and lemon reduces tea scum or cloudiness caused by calcium compounds. Here are the claims, cited in an article reviewing that book content (which I guess could contain some error in summary, to be fair to the original author):

Francl’s pro tips for the perfect brew are:

Adding a pinch of salt – the sodium ion in salt blocks the chemical mechanism that makes tea taste bitter.

Steeping teabags quickly but with plenty of dunking and squeezing – to reduce the sour-tasting tannins created by caffeine dissolving slowly in water.

Decaffeinated tea can be made by steeping a teabag for 30 seconds, removing it and discarding the liquid, then adding fresh water and rebrewing for five minutes.

A small squeeze of lemon juice can remove the “scum” that sometimes appears on the surface of the drink, which is formed from chemical elements in the tea and water….

There are two sets of problems with these ideas: one is that they make no sense, presented in this form, and the other is that what they really probably refer to that could be accurate, after some editing and adjustment, is still problematic.

It’s possible that the first claim is that when you taste salt you also notice less bitterness. It could instead relate to a claim that sodium is going to offset extraction of compounds resulting in astringency, which is a mouthfeel effect that is often confused with bitterness.  Bitterness is a flavor, not a mouthfeel aspect, but people conflate the two. It doesn’t clearly say that; that’s only one possible interpretation of this summary. 

Caffeine really does taste bitter, as some other medications do, like aspirin, but surely salt isn’t going to offset caffeine extraction. Salt doesn’t seem likely to affect tannin extraction either, but I suppose I wouldn’t know if it did. In the following point, related to caffeine, tannins aren’t created by caffeine, and again it seems doubtful that caffeine could affect tannin extraction.  Again the feel effect of tannins is more often misinterpreted as bitterness, not sourness.

A short tangent can help place that first possible interpretation.  I add salt to masala chai (spiced black tea) to increase flavor depth, which happens even without noticeable salty flavor, as can occur with food.  Once out with family to a Mongolian grill place a niece and I added salt to our dishes that ended up way too spicy.  Salt doesn’t decrease the experience of spice, the heat, but it can help spicy food flavors balance better and make more sense.  This may be the claim here, that the salt isn’t blocking any compound extraction, or shifting feel effect, but that the overall flavor balance might seem more positive when shifted a little, potentially even without the tea tasting salty.  Maybe.

That decaffeination hack listed has been debunked over and over; this study’s caffeine extraction rate testing results work as good a summary review as any to show why:

30 seconds: 9% caffeine removal

1 minute: 18% caffeine removal

So no, removing 9% of the caffeine isn’t going to help much, and you're probably removing 9% of the flavor along with it. Beyond these errors some main points work, to a limited degree, which I’ll move on to critiquing.

One problem with these claims goes back to why a tea would be astringent or would have a scum on it in the first place. It’s talking about brewing low quality, ground material, tea-bag black tea, which is very astringent for a few different reasons.

The form of the leaf is a main input; whole leaf tea is less astringent, because compounds extract differently in ground material (tannins, to use the informal designation; let’s get back to what those really are shortly). The more you chop or grind the material the faster it brews, and the more overall flavor is extracted, just not necessarily the most positive flavor or feel related compounds.  This is why tea bags that contain 2 or 2 1/2 grams of tea leaf material are quite chopped or even ground up, to get more out of a little leaf content, which brews faster. So you can use better quality, more whole-leaf tea instead and skip the salt, but it’s more expensive, and you would need to use a bit more leaf.

a Ceylon (Sri Lankan tea) tea bag I cut open awhile back.

It doesn’t add much to what I’ve just expressed but lets consider what tannins even are, in relation to some of the flavor compounds being discussed, from this Tea Epicure source:

There are an estimated 30,000 polyphenolic compounds in tea.There are several known categories within polyphenols…

Within the flavonoid group are flavanols, flavonols, flavones, isoflavones, and anthocyanins. Flavanols (short for flavan-3-ols) are the most prevalent and thus the most studied. Flavanols are often referred to as tannins or catechins. 

The major flavanols in tea are: catechin (C), epicatechin (EC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), gallocatechin (GC), epigallocatechin (EGC), and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is the most active of the catechins, and this flavanol is often the subject of studies regarding tea antioxidants.

Flavanols are converted to theaflavins and thearubigins during oxidation. They are the compounds responsible for the dark color and robust flavors that are present in oxidized teas…

The same kind of theme repeats with adding lemon. If you use water very high in calcium compounds, which is not so unusual for a lot of water sources, a light scum can form on the top of your tea, from polyphenols in the tea interacting with those calcium compounds. Lemon juice can clear that up. Or passing the water through a charcoal filter might help, removing some of the calcium compounds instead, before they combine with brewed tea and form a scum. 

“Tea enthusiasts” often use some special water version, bottled spring water from an ideal mineral profile source, or they’ll treat water to strip all the minerals, reverse osmosis filter it, and re-add an optimum mineral blend. All that might be going a bit far; in most cases using filtered tap water is fine for a decent outcome.  The extra level of concern seems to relate to optimizing outcome from a much better quality range of tea, the opposite extreme.

So in conclusion, no, salt and lemon have no place in tea. 

Or if you really want to use cheap tea bags to make tea, and brew it with relatively unsuitable high calcium content water, then sure, add those things. It’s your tea; it’s up to you.

If the goal is to experience above average quality tea that changes things, but that’s not everyone’s goal. Lipton or Great Value tea bags are really cheap, and easy to prepare, and if you add milk and sugar to that tea it can be ok. Or sugar and lemon, I guess; I don’t think it’s going to work to add both lemon and milk, since drinking curdled milk in tea won’t be pleasant. It’s just nothing like what tea enthusiasts drink.  

Most of the time, at least; I’ll drink Lipton sometimes at our office, because I’m only in there once a week after work from home was instituted.  Dilmah is better but they usually stock Lipton there.  There probably is no standard example of a tea enthusiast, so I couldn't possibly be one, but the generality of not using tea bag tea still holds up.

this meme breakdown makes for a long story

It’s too long a subject to treat as a short tangent here but pleasantness of the tea, flavor character and such, is only one part of range of concerns. Tea enthusiasts tend to take up the idea that more natural grown tea could be healthier, from forest or more natural growing condition sources, versus standard plantation teas, which are potentially grown with more pesticide input. Maybe it works out like that.  My guess is that Lipton is safe enough, but once you switch over to the lowest cost bulk sources from Chinese or Indian markets you are taking some real risk.

The same astringency that is a concern for “bitterness” input can also lead to stomach problems, for some. I wrote about this concern awhile back related to a co-worker needing to quit tea due to stomach impact.

The short version of that writing is that it will probably be necessary to drop out drinking matcha, black tea, green tea, and sheng pu’er entirely once these problems have already developed. Prior to experiencing damage to your stomach eating food before drinking any tea could protect you, at a guess most effectively if that food contains both complex carbohydrates and fat.  Eating just fruit doesn't seem to help, based on my experience. 

There are other types of tea that are milder than these, oolongs or white teas, and routinely alternating the types of tea that you drink could help.  Drinking more whole leaf tea would be better.  Once you already have a problem switching to shu pu’er could help, or going off tea entirely for a long period of time.

Let’s get back to the starting point and think all this through one more step: who is going to be interested enough in tea to buy and read a book about the subject, and then also prepare it from Lipton or Great Value tea bags?

Vietnamese black tea, the last black tea I bought a few months ago

whole leaf tea and CTC tea (from an early blog post, before phone camera quality had improved)

I would assume that this “better quality” tea is a familiar subject to anyone reading my blog posts or Quora answers, but in case it’s not this post covered more on that divide.

Japanese goishi cha and shu pu'er tea bag review

Kind of an odd theme, comparing two versions of tea bag teas, which aren't quite as similar as they might be at first glance.  This Japanese tea probably is goishi cha, but it was only represented as a version of Japanese tea closest to sheng pu'er, but not sheng pu'er, from the source. 

Kittichai of Jip Eu (a local Bangkok shop) gave me some in a visit a month or so ago.  He didn't seem to love it, and it is on the strange side.  It tastes a little like seaweed, and it's slightly sour (they were brewing some that day, so I've already tried it).

there again with a nice visitor from Belgium yesterday, Dennis

Related to that identification this recent group thread discussing Japanese teas in relation to sheng pu'er might help place things.  To be clear I'm not claiming this is definitely goishi cha; it may well be an attempt at replicating sheng, a hybrid style, that didn't land too close.  It is whatever it is.  It finding it's way into a tea bag isn't a great sign; it may not be the best version of whatever it is.

This citation from the My Japanese Green Tea blog fills in more of what goishi cha is, which it seems likely this is:

Goishicha (碁石茶, go stone tea) is a rare Japanese dark (post-fermented) tea made in Ōtoyo Town, Kochi prefecture.

It’s classified as a type of bancha, although it’s not a green tea...

...This tea goes through two fermentation steps, one by mold and the other one by lactic acid bacteria.  In the second fermentation process, the tea is pickled. That’s why it has its distinctive sour taste.

Although it was mostly used as an ingredient in chagayu (a Japanese rice porridge with tea), nowadays people have begun to drink it as any other tea.


That last idea about it not being a good sign that the Japanese tea is even in a tea bag leads into the next tea, the one I'll compare it to, a tea-bag version of shu pu'er.  I've passed those in two different grocery stores here (in Bangkok), Dayi / Taetea versions (maybe only sheng?), and it never really crossed my mind to buy the tea.  For the sake of reporting on it I might someday, I just wouldn't have high expectations related to that.  It's odd thinking of what tea material that didn't make the cut to be pressed into the cheapest Dayi cakes would be like.

between $8 and $10, but pricing isn't the issue

A vendor sent this along with an order, as a free sample (Chawang Shop).  That's crazy, isn't it, sending a tea enthusiast tea bags?  Or a tea blogger; that's a strange way to seek attention. There seems to be two ways of taking that, as a way to provide access to something unusual that's more interesting and pleasant than it might sound, or as an insult, a critique of someone's taste in tea.  Being as generous as I am I just suspend judgment about that part.  It could be good aged, low grade tea dust.  It lists the raw material production date as April 2010.  That changes things a little, doesn't it?  If highly compressed cakes or tuochas age slower tea bag tea would have to age fastest.  It's too bad it's not sheng; aging transitions shu less.

Comparing the two probably won't turn up much for relevant overlap or one informing the experience of the other.  It's as much about getting two tea-bag versions of teas out of the way in one review.  They both sound interesting, if unconventional and probably limited in degree of promise (one I've tried--that's all the more true for that).

As to methodology I'll preheat two tea cups and brew both using two tea bags, in about 6 ounces / 200 ml of water (not measured, if that matters).  My intention is to brew the first round between 2 and 2 1/2 minutes and the second for about 3 minutes, depending on results the first time.  I suppose it would be possible to "Gong Fu" brew these, using 3 or 4 tea bags and short dips in the water.  It all feels a bit off the map.

Review:

shu:  it's shu.  That kind of works as a two-word review, not only in this case but often enough for shu.  I like shu but it's on the more basic side compared to sheng.  Subleties, complexity, and variations occur across a narrower scope.

It's not bad though.  Cocoa stands out most; that's a good start.  This would already resolve a lot of people new to shu having a problem with the off flavors; it has none.  The warm, rich, earthy flavor that identifies shu as shu is present, in the range of dark wood, shifted a little towards peat.  From there it's a bit non-distinct.  It would be a stretch but someone with the right type of imagination could just keep on going, listing out dried fruit, root spices, specific mineral undertones, and so on.  It's not as if it only tastes like cocoa and that dark wood / peat range, there's more complexity to it, but the rest is mixed and unidentifiable.

Feel is ok; it has some thickness, and the feel range is pleasant.  Aftertaste isn't typically that pronounced in shu, compared to other tea types, but it's intense enough and doesn't vanish immediately.  To me this seems like decent shu, just nothing to noteworthy or exceptional.  It may have had more for distinct character and rough edges earlier in it's existence, with those evening out to add more depth instead over that 9 1/2 years.  The depth is fine.


Japanese tea (possibly goishi, potentially a sheng hybrid style):  it's not bad.  That's an odd way to start a review, affirming a tea isn't bad, and there are positives and negatives, with novelty making a read on that relate to a mismatch to any expectations as much as an objective, neutral assessment.  It's only slightly sour, and I'm not "getting" as much seaweed as seemed to have emerged in a later round trying it at that shop.  Spice is a main flavor aspect, not so far off clove, but it's not that.  It might be a mix of spice range flavors, so including a touch of clove but also cardamom, and probably a more neutral root spice too. 

It's hard to place.  This is nothing like sheng, nothing like any tea type that comes to mind.  A flavor list might help explain that.  A trace of sourness isn't primary but it stands out for being odd, and that spice might be the strongest, most "forward" flavor aspect.  A warm base flavor around the range of cured hay grounds that, but that leans a little towards vegetal range, so maybe cured hay with just a touch of roasted bitter melon.  It's not as bitter as sour, but both are there in a very light form.  The warmth of the tone makes it hard to place in relation to other teas; it's in between conventional somewhat aged sheng (how those often are after 4 or 5 years) and a mild black tea.  That also relates to a mineral base addition, not nearly as strong as is very common in sheng, and in a different form.

The feel is a little odd; no surprise given that flavor list part, right?  It has a limited fullness to it, and a hint of dryness, but no structure that is similar to other tea types, nothing conventional.

I think I'll use a faster infusion time to see how that works out, around a minute instead, and then give these a long soak and see what's left of them.  I can't imagine that the shu is "going anywhere," but we'll see.  Back on brewing methodology I didn't mention that I'd been dunking them a little.  It's funny reviewing tea bag teas.

Second infusion:

shu:  being prepared quite light didn't help this tea, and it didn't seem to develop at all.  It's just a lighter brewed version this time.  It's decent, drinkable tea, just not exceptional in any way.  It's much better than I expected; this is average range shu.  Well above average, if someone has been drinking cheap shu, but I tend to run across good versions instead. 

A faint hint of citrus might be emerging; that is different.  I like shu brewed a bit stronger than most other tea types so I might be judging this unfairly based on brewing it in opposition to my own type preferences on this round.


goishi cha (if it is that):  I think this improved a lot related to me being more familiar with the range from drinking that first cup, more than related to any actual transition.  It might be better prepared lighter, and the initial sourness might have faded some.  To be clear that had been quite moderate, and if someone had any tolerance at all for sourness in tea it could be seen as well-balanced.  I could also relate to not having any tolerance for it; that flavor range is unusual, in other tea types.  An unconventional sheng version I've been drinking a little of (tried twice, but I own a cake of it) is a little sour, and I've ran through the exact same concern and cycle with that.

Some of the positive range seemed to bump a bit, I think.  The spice ramped up, and the warmth of a cured hay range plays a slightly larger role.  The feel is fine, not so unusual, just not exactly typical either.  The dryness faded and a slight fullness added in.  Other than being a very unusual tea it's pleasant.  Or strange instead, if a negative bias pairs with that particular form of novelty.

Third infusion:

It's not looking so promising; both are brewing a bit light already.

shu:  this really could've used another 4 minutes.  It's still pleasant though, and at least the flavor and character isn't going off in any way, beyond thinning.  For 4 grams of tea-bag tea it performed much better than I expected.  Shu is inexpensive enough that it makes sense to me to find slightly better versions than this if you are going to drink it, but this is reasonable.


goishi:  sourness is picking up; this is probably closer to where I drank it that time in that shop.  I've not really noticed seaweed so far, as I did then, but it would apply a lot more as a description in this round than in the past two.  Savory character seems to have bumped up a lot.  It had some of that range in the earlier rounds but it wasn't that notable, and the other unconventional flavors stood out even more. 

It's not the really notable umami in sheng and gyokuro but it's not completely unrelated either.  Going back again and trying this tasting over while more familiar with the tea (flavors, overall effect) I'd probably list that as a main component for those first two rounds, only leaving it out for being absorbed by the novelty of the rest. 

I like it.  I don't love it, and I'd not go out of my way to explore this range further, to see how even better versions come across, but it's pleasant and interesting.  I've had the experience many times of trying new tea versions and them just not clicking, and then once I try a better version it all just makes sense, and even those lower quality versions seem better after that.  An epiphany, I guess one might call that experience, a sudden grasp of insight.  That might well happen in this case too.  Shu is probably like that, to some extent, and sheng definitely would be.  For me Wuyi Yancha worked out that way; even though I always liked the moderate quality, dark toffee with cardboard-aspect versions once I tried a better one it all made that much more sense.

these leaves don't look so bad, freed from that tea bag, just an unusual color

An interesting thing came up trying to brew a couple more rounds out of these later:  the shu had kind of had it but the goishi (or whatever it was) brewed with plenty of intensity and was even more pleasant.  The sourness had faded and a good bit of citrus picked up, as a notable part of the experience.  I stretched it for two more rounds and it probably could've went one or two more, even though it was tapering off a bit. 

I bet with the tea bag cut open, brewed Gongfu style in a gaiwan, this tea wouldn't be bad at all.  The sourness could seem odd, or off, but related to working through that expectation with an unusual version of sheng any hint of that doesn't have to be clearly awful.

Very interesting experiences!  Many thanks to those two vendors for passing these on to try.

Experimenting with microwaving water for tea

I posted a possible explanation for why microwaving water for tea might not work well, and this follows up on that.

I've microwaved water in the past and experienced that fizzing effect mentioned there.  There's nothing as solid for evidence as experiencing something for yourself.  But since I never heat water in a microwave now I don't have any recent experience of any kind to draw on.  And I've never comparison tasted tea made with water heated in two different ways, so I try that for this.

not how my tea infusion process typically goes

Backing up a bit; why else not to use a microwave for heating water for tea

I never did flesh out the hearsay account of why to not use a microwave in the first place.  That earlier post centered on the one guess for why it might be a bad idea, only related to dissolved air content throwing off texture.  The one World of Tea article I had cited was more about debunking a claim that it's healthier, which could only work so well since that original claim was supposedly coming from research findings, from testing.  It would take counter-example testing with varying conclusions to conclusively reject that, and they didn't do that.

Here are some typical reasons cited in a popular tea blog post, in the Tea For Me Please blog:

Lack of Control

...Although you could certainly use a thermometer to check the water afterwards I would would much rather use a variable temperature electric kettle.

Superheated Water

...I've seen some websites claim that this is not true however I've seen it happen myself. Snopes also agrees with me. Placing something non-metallic like a wooden chopstick into the cup can help avoid this happening but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

It Just Doesn't Taste the Same

It could very well all be in my head but I just don't enjoy tea that was made with microwaved water as much as stove-top or kettle heated water... Some theories suggest that the amount of dissolved oxygen is reduced, creating a flatter tasting cup.

It Makes That Weird Froth On Top

Since microwaved water lacks a nucleation point for air bubbles, it tends to make a weird froth on the surface of your cup once a tea bag or sugar is added to the cup. You all know what I'm talking about. I just can't bring myself to enjoy a frothy cuppa unless the tea in question is matcha.

Temperature control, the first point, is a main factor in making tea, one that comes up a good bit in this post related to testing results.

Lately I've been running across more people claiming they like almost all tea brewed at boiling point or near boiling point, and moderate aspect results by adjusting infusion time instead of temperature.  One person even claimed that can work for green tea.  Personal preference would seem to be a factor in this, that extraction of different compounds would vary by these factors.  It wouldn't seem to work to cite one approach and outcome as objectively best for everyone.  It would seem that any conclusion drawn would relate to a case of a process being best per a preference instead, although some degree of informed consensus agreement about that would also be possible.

On the second point, superheating is possible.  Snopes wouldn't lie about confirming that.  But in general it doesn't seem a high risk, or a big problem.  I guess that's up until you get burned.

That third point about taste is a little non-specific, in the more general first part.  Related to the theory mentioned--"hypothesis," per terminology correction input on my own post, but in standard loose English use "theory" works there--according to the solubility curves of oxygen and nitrogen in water at different temperatures there is next to no dissolved gas in water near boiling point; it just won't hold it.  The real problem seems to be that the air could be leaving the water less effectively based on heating method, even though less really is soluble at that temperature, which seems to be the cause of the fourth and last point.  

I'm not sure what else could cause a tea to be frothy.  I'll move on to trying to recreate that experience myself.

The first experiment

The initial idea was to compare tea made with microwaved water with water heated in the typical Thai version of a kettle, a larger device designed to heat water and keep a store of it hot throughout the day.  It's definitely not the same thing as the better variable-temperature versions more serious enthusiasts might use, but it is what I make tea with while I'm at work.  The water source for both will be the same, bottled water, the type that comes in a dispenser.  This version is from Chang, a beer company that also sells water.  It's a bit off the subject but "chang" means elephant in Thai.

I wanted to use tea bags, which I don't typically use, or actually own any of, since that seems to be the standard set-up discussed in related articles.  My wife did some interpreter work recently and snagged some from a local hotel hosting it, made by Dilmah (Ceylon; Sri Lankan CTC black tea).


Some of their loose teas actually aren't that bad but I don't have high hopes for this version.  Tea-bag tea does tend to be bad, due to using dust or finely ground leaves in order to maximize flavor per quantity and reduce cost, and to brew faster.

Simple enough, right?  I should clarify that I'm not trying to "do science" here, just trying something out, checking on a general range of results.  I'm not tasting it in a double-blind process, and there are lots variables I'm not exploring, and levels of potential test controls I'm not applying.  The idea was that I could just run it again if things seemed inconclusive, and that's how it worked out, as a series of three comparisons.


In the first attempt I initially microwaved the water for two minutes, and it didn't seem at full-boil temperature, so I gave it 30 more seconds--not tightly controlled methodology.  I let both samples brew around three minutes, but didn't time it.

First round results

The microwaved water boiled after the extra 30 seconds; it was boiling when I took it out.  It occurred to me that this might throw off the experience of fizzing water, since it wouldn't take many seconds of agitation from the water being at a full rolling boil to help dissolved air outgass.  That's assuming that my prior interpretation of that potential problem was even accurate.

The cups were really small--just what they had on hand in the office, since I don't have two identical versions of the cup I usually use there--and in the end it was on the strong side, not at all ideally brewed.  I'm really out of practice making tea using tea bags.


The microwaved water version brewed slightly darker.  Upon tasting both I realized there was a temperature difference, that the kettle hadn't been maintaining a full boiling point temperature.  It would've been easy to hit a "reboil" button to adjust for that.  Most likely that alone would throw off any results, using two different temperatures, but I'll still run through my impressions.




That microwaved water didn't seem fizzy, and didn't feel different at all.  The main differences seemed to relate to using slightly hotter water.  That tea version was brewed slightly stronger, which didn't work quite as well.  It's possible that beyond the infusion strength difference the proportion of extracted compounds varying accounted for the cooler kettle-heated water tea being a bit softer.  Altogether the kettle-water version was better, softer, with less harsh astringency and earthy edge, but I'd expect that related most to temperature difference.

not recommended, even for testing purposes

The tea did seem ok as tea bag teas go.  I don't drink lots of those, maybe not quite once a year it comes up.  But I did try a Lipton version recently when traveling, their "international" variation.  It was flat-out awful.  I wouldn't want to drink much of this Dilmah tea-bag tea either but it was at least drinkable plain, without sugar and milk.  It tasted like CTC Ceylon typically does, with a bit of malt, just not as much as in CTC Assam, and a pronounced mineral undertone.  From there somewhat earthy flavor range could be described in lots of different ways (woody, like leather, "tastes like tea").


It wasn't really a success as experiments go.  Giving it that extra 30 seconds probably threw off a chance to experience any fizzing and made for a water temperature parameter split.  I guess at a minimum it confirmed that under those conditions the water heating method results really didn't seem to have been a factor, positive or negative, beyond what I interpreted as temperature difference related.

A second try

I tried it again at work another day, trying to recreate the "fizzy" tea effect and see the difference.  That was based on using the exact same tea (a Dilmah tea-bag Ceylon) and the same conditions.  Results weren't so different.

It didn't work to try and back off the microwave time to achieve the super-saturated air condition.  For whatever reason that water was at full rolling boil at two minutes this time (in the same 900 watt microwave), versus not being that hot in the first trial after that length of time.  Maybe that's somehow related to using a slightly larger cup with slightly more liquid in it (?), made of glass instead of ceramic.  It's hard to guess how those factors would relate to the water heating faster the second time.

The tea kettle had just went through a re-boil cycle so it should have been at full boiling point but it was still very slightly cooler--strange.  There seemed to be a correspondence to cooler water working better, again, for the astringency in the tea-bag CTC tea being moderated by backing off full boiling point temperature.  Using a larger cup and more water made for less concentrated tea, which was better.  Again I was disappointed to not get the "fizzing" to occur, and again didn't notice any texture difference in the water.

It was interesting noting how large a difference that slightly different water temperatures made in the tea aspects, which was more minimal in this test version.  Just a little below boiling point--that water in the kettle had just boiled; I saw the indicator and heard it--was nicer, less harsh and astringent.  Of course I'm not accustomed to drinking much CTC tea, and people who do might often add either milk or sugar to offset that, or both.  It seemed like a better test was going to relate to using a tea I actually like, an orthodox version versus a CTC tea-bag tea, so I tried that the third time.

A third trial, orthodox Assam, brewed at home

I tried the same type of experiment at home using an orthodox Assam I reviewed not too long ago (that Assam Teahaus version).  Again the problem was going to be using water at exactly the same temperature.  I do have a thermometer around the house somewhere, just for that purpose, but I'm out of the habit of testing water temperatures, and didn't turn it up for the test.  I typically use a hot water dispenser that's part of the filtration system for brewing at home, which doesn't provide full boiling point temperature water, but it's not so far off it.  I don't remember results from measuring it from back when I was into checking on that, with that final brewing temperature version varying a lot if based on whether you preheat teaware or not.

The idea was to get the water to that point of supersaturation of dissolved air, just below boiling point, but in three tries microwaving water it didn't really work.

maybe just a little froth, but I was really looking for fizz

That water source I used at home is filtered Bangkok tap water.  It's safe to drink unfiltered, or so they say (and I just happened to read a research paper on that here).  There's also an online water quality monitoring system of remote sensor results seeming to support that claim, but we drink it after it has passed through a three-stage filtration system.

It's probably not an ideal water source for brewing tea, but then people vary on what is.  The best approach is probably to test different waters with different teas to find an optimum.  Per online discussion that might relate to a matrix mapping of bests-per-type versus one best bottled water solution across all types (with a bit on that in this experiment).  I've tried out different forms of water in the past but nothing even as rigidly controlled as this loose microwave-heating testing methodology.  I'm an engineer, not a scientist.  Engineers tend to build as limited models as needed to get things to work and then use functional output testing to make adjustments, versus tightly controlled experimental trials.

Related to the one concern I was curious if this water source (filtered tap water) would contain the same degree of dissolved air as water-cooler large-jar stored water.  I'm not sure; I'm really raising it as a question versus speculating about that.


In the first test the microwaved water was slightly too cool, due to backing off temperature to stop it from going to a full rolling boil, and it wasn't a fair comparison.  I was using a hybrid approach between Western and Gong Fu preparations so getting another two or more comparable infusions wouldn't be a problem, but results could vary slightly based on having the tea more or less "brewed out."


There might have been a little bit of minor bubbling initially but it didn't seem to affect the texture of the tea.  It happened with both heat-source varied water versions during the initial infusion (to both samples), and seemed to relate to the tea getting wet initially, maybe not due to that "outgassing saturated air" effect.  At any rate the texture in tasting the teas didn't seem to vary, or seem off.


On the second try the water temperature seemed more comparable, both slightly off full boiling point by a nearly identical amount (per noticing it, not measurement).  The texture was essentially the same and the taste didn't vary either.  Without pronounced astringency in that tea type to begin with that aspect wasn't a factor, as it had been for the CTC tea.


I tried it again for a third infusion, since producing multiple infusions was the theme, based on using those parameters.  Still no fizzing, and still not really much in the way of difference for results, in any aspect range, for flavor or feel.  It's not really what I expected.

Conclusions

I couldn't reconstruct that fizzing effect in microwaving the water for brewing.  I didn't notice any difference in outcome that probably wasn't tied to slight variation in temperature, and later when that was better sorted out there was no apparent difference.  I'm not saying that microwaved water is as suitable as kettle-heated water, just that in trying direct comparison three times over six different infusions I couldn't get any significant limitation or difference to show up, besides variations related to a lack of temperature control in the trials.

It's not easy to microwave water to get it just short of boiling point.  That stands out more in comparison with a kettle that can perform a temperature control function, since jar-style kettles that sort of maintain a heated water supply do vary in temperature output.  In retrospect I could've just heated the water over and over, to try a half dozen or more cycles instead of just using the water however it turned out.  External factors came into play related to that: sometimes my weekend mornings are well structured for spending two or three hours on a tea tasting process and sometimes they're not.

Maybe microwaving water isn't so bad.  Maybe it is much worse, and I missed noticing that in these experiments.  I suppose that the one time you eventually experience your tea fizzing with that "weird froth on top" could be a deal-breaker.

my three kids at the vet; easy to spot which was adopted