Talk:3022: Making Tea
I wonder where making it in Boston Harbor, at ambient temperature, at scale would fit on this scale. 172.70.206.162 04:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- A little to the left of the microwave thing. 162.158.186.252 05:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, no, much further to the right. You stole our colony from us, set up some tinpot, pretended 'country' in its place, and you didn't even have the class to make a decent cup of tea first. 12.68.205.93 06:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- And, even if this guy is right, way too much salt... 172.70.91.130 07:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- Soyuz nyerushimyy respublik svobodnik... DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 14:13, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- I would like to as a british person to corroborate this, in the 80's my Dad visited the USA (he did go to florida) and still is complaining that the freshly boiled water wasn't poured directly onto the tea bag but was instead the tea bag and the hot water(now luke warm water) and bag was delivered separately!!! The delivery of freshly boiling water on to the bag is the major issue with microwaves, not the nucleation thing in my experience. Bear in mind I don't even actually like tea, still care enough to right this, but i'll be signing this anonymously to avoid shame being bought on my family and my family's familys. Murderous royals are a lot less popular the tea 108.162.245.227
- I first visited the US in 1980. A friend who was with hate coffee and was horrified when he ordered tea that he got the water and the tea bag separately. When he suggested they add the water as soon as it was boiled, the wait staff thought he was joking. Many years later in Texas, a waiter asked me why I, a Brit, was drinking coffee, not tea. "You don't know how to make it," I replied. (In my house, the electric kettle and teapot sit next to each other on the kitchen worktop.)--172.70.160.135 09:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
When I make ramen, I put the measuring cup in the microwave. Fight me. 162.158.167.87 05:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
"...to the point virtually every home has an electric tea kettle as a standard appliance". If I'm reading it correctly, this and the comic suggests we (though not I, as I'm not a tea-drinker) make tea in the electric kettle. Electric tea-urns, yes, or maybe a setup like a samovar. But, generally, the kettle itself (and, so far as I'm aware, always with an electric kettle) is used to heat the water, which you then pour into the teapot into which the requisite number of tealeaves/teabags are also put to steep. (Or, for the lazy way, into the mug-with-teabag.) I wouldn't be able to use my electric kettle to (for example) make my instant mashed-potato into the actual mash, if I'd have regularly used it to mash tea. Or top up the boiling saucepan that I'd realised I'd not quite enough water in to cover the pasta/vegetables/whatever. Or to easily add nust a little more heat (with less new water) to the washing-up bowl than would be possible from the hot tap, back to as hot as possible without scalding me. – Whether intentional or not, I suspect Randall has the role of kettle and teapot mixed up, and so (without the intent to parody) has the editor who wrote the above. 172.70.160.135 05:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't think the section on 'Boiling the water in a pot' refers to a teapot - I think it means boiling the water in a pot on the hob, and then making tea with it (in a pot/mug). 172.69.195.27 07:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, but I also think there's a language issue with the use of pot vs. pan that makes things more confusing. I think there are several types of cookware that Americans call pot and British call pan. So British would not say they boil water in a pot but rather in a saucepan (if there's no kettle available of course). Mtcv (talk) 09:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I (as Brit) am uncommon in using an electric filter coffee machine to make tea (two bags in what is supposed to be the coffee filter). Set up, press the button and come back to a not jug of fresh tea which is not stewed. If later, the hot plate has shut off and it is cold, you can zap it in a mug in the microwave. RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 08:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- As another brit, what? I do not understand the mechanics of this, please elaborate. Additionally, my understanding is that the water would be *briefly acquainted* with the tea, thus would be a poor facsimile of "tea" and would rather be closer to something the americans would attempt. 141.101.99.126 11:46, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'm guessing the water would drip on to the teabags, then soak all the way through them and drip out into the jug, without allowing sufficient to accumulate that it would run straight out without passing fully through the bag. It's an intriguing idea. But most definitely wrong.172.70.85.239 17:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, Technology Connections! 141.101.109.167 09:51, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
You Westerners have literally no idea how to make proper, good tea! SMH TPS (talk) 13:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
As a Brit who grew up in sight of the Yorkshire Tea factory – and worked there on occasion – and having travelled very widely around the world – including in the US – I feel I'm supposed to have an opinion. However, I have never encountered the microwaving of water as mentioned here, and I would not object to it as supposedly problematic for tea-quality reasons. I'd object for reasons of common sense. What mystifies me is the idea that kettles are tea-specific. They are for heating water, not making tea. Coffee uses hot water. Pasta, rice and potatoes use hot water. Peas, carrots, cabbage, sweetcorn...
Baking bread often involves a pan of steaming water in the oven.
"But I can boil water in a pan for cooking pasta or vegetables."
Yes, but you'll be waiting a l-o-o-o-ng time. I'll heat my water in the kettle, pour it into the now-hot pan, cook my pasta, and I'll be eating before your water is boiling.
A kettle is not a tea-making item any more than a frying pan is an omelette-making item; tea is simply one of the things you can make with water from a kettle. Hot water is a basic civilised human commodity, predating recorded history. That we should live in a mechanised world, and the Consumer Nation doesn't have water-boiling appliances as standard (saying instead "I don't have a kettle because I don't drink tea") is ludicrous.
Using a microwave rather than buying a kettle is a bit like not buying a hammer for driving in nails because you've got a big pair of pliers that will do. Sure, they're heavy lumps of metal than live in your toolbag, but they're not the right thing.
The Brits, incidentally, are not tea lovers. They are prolific consumers of awful tea that actual tea lovers wouldn't use for cleaning their drains. The most enthusiastic tea enthusiasts I've ever met were from Maryland.
It's all just social ceremony in the UK. Milk first, tea first, must use a saucer, must use a pot...tea is a British religion, not a British drink.Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I wonder what the Brits would feel about repurposing a single-cup coffee maker. These days, I usually put a tea bag in a mug and place it in a Keurig machine and run it (without a K-cup, of course) to deliver the hot water. Probably the wrong temperature, but fast and easy and the result is good enough. Shamino (talk) 14:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Would any British person care to evaluate my tea making practices? Boil water in electric kettle. Pour water over teabag, allow to steep, remove teabag. Add sugar and ice cubes. RegularSizedGuy (talk) 15:54, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- ...well, seems a fairly standard "making one mug of tea for oneself" process. It lacks a milk-adding stage (thus no arguments about whether before or after the water). Removing the teabag at that point probably means it's not going to become a Builders' Brew, which is your choicd. Sugar is ok. And... Waitwhat... Ice Cubes?!? ...can I get back to you on that? 172.70.162.163 17:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I can confirm (by inadvertent experiments conducted on flatmates) that they indeed do not like tea being make in the kettle. What really makes them angry though is making coffee in the teapot. It ruins the taste of the teapot forever apparently. There is also a faction that insists that a teapot should never be washed, and washing it invokes a lesser anger.Gopher (talk) 15:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
On rare occasions where I don't have a kettle available, I use a microwave oven to boil water for tea. But it doesn't look and taste quite the same, and often leaves an ugly foam at the surface when the tea bag is added. This phenomenon is investigated here: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/22264. So the British might be right... Disclaimer: I'm neither from the UK nor from the US. 172.69.68.126 16:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
There is a tumblr thread about the topic of teamaking in microwaves, kettles, etc. Funnily enough it showed up in my Instagram reels feed just a few hours before this comic was posted. I was thinking perhaps Randall saw it too and was inspired by it? Both of them have to deal with the different ways of making tea and how "absurd" or "unconventional" (etc.) they are. Even if Randall didn't have it in mind, it's certainly a funny little coincidence. Pie Guy (talk) 16:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm guessing my occasional summertime practice of filling a gallon jar with water and lots of tea bags, setting it on the back porch in the sun for a few hours until the water turns dark brown, then putting the whole thing in the refrigerator and later drinking it over ice would be toward the more angry end of the spectrum.172.70.126.204 16:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)Pat
- I think the "in the sun for a few hours" part might just be too incomprehensible to most of us, here in Britain. If we have a few hours of sun (and we're not abroad and deliberately sunburning ourselves on the beach/beside the pool in our week at the Costa Lotta budget-all-inclusivs holiday) then we're either fuming at our workdesks complaining about the louts stripping down to their shirtsleeves and splashing in the town-centre fountains or we're on our lunch-break and we are the louts stripping down to our shirtsleeves and splashing in the town-centre fountains. In neither case would sun-stewed tea be a priority. 172.70.162.163 17:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps it's worth to mention how dangerous it is to boil water in a microwave. https://tastecooking.com/dangerous-microwave-water/ Mestafais (talk) 15:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
There are several comics with unmarked scales. It would be interesting if the descriptions started using pixels to point where each mark is along the line. As a rough estimate, the four points mentioned here are at X-values: 90px, 115px, 345px, and 645px, indicating that the pot method is 10% as infuriating as the chalice method - or that making tea in a pot ten times would be equally as infuriating as making it once in a chalice (at least, assuming the kettle method causes zero furons. I know of hedons and dolors. I guess 'furons' are a unit of fury, right? 172.70.46.236 16:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
