Smag (Rant)

[Max Demian]

"What goes in dry, comes out wet, and can give pleasure to two people?"

[Max Demian]

I use a Bodum Tea press teapot (available for two or three pounds from charity shops - probably unwanted gifts) The only disadvantage is that you can't put the hot water in all at once: you have to let some go through the filter before you add more.

[alan_m]

But only if you want undrinkable tea :)

I tea pot and loose tea is only for the tea snobs who have been brain washed into believing there is an art in making a drinkable liquid :)

Nothing wrong with tea bags in a mug.

I don't actually know of anyone who uses a tea pot these days

[Tim Streater]

How long d'ye leave the tea-bag in, then?

Well if you don't mind using a non-recyclable item which can't be composted (due to the plastic in it), then go ahead.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Really, tea is pretty crap to start with and all that paraphernalia wont stop it being crap. sling a bag in the cup top up with boiling water and its ground so fine that 30 seconds later the bag comes out the milk goes in and that enough tea for one day

[charles]

obviously you don't know me. Tea for one in a mug; tea for two or more in a pot. Why use more than one bag when you don't need to?

[Tim Streater]

Of course it's not undrinkable, unless you're my nephew or his mother, for both of whom tea is a pale, almost milk-coloured, fluid. And when we were last there we had to rant at my SiL, as the concept of saving money / reducing pollution by dint of *sharing* a tea-bag between more than one mug had passed her by. A typical urban do-gooder, I'm afraid - talks up a storm about saving the planet but does nothing practical about it.

[RJH]

Couple of quid a year maybe? But if every household did it, scale that up by about 20 million . . .

[mechanic]

How would the liquid inside a double walled metal Bosch kettle ever see the microwaves?

[Robin]

Depends what you are comparing it with. A really cheap kettle will have an immersed rather than concealed element so need a bigger minimum amount; may not be easy to judge how much water is in it; be single walled; and may overboil for longer. It certainly wont have the ability to set a lower temperature. Compared with one of them I reckon we save £10 to £15 a year on electricity. That more than covers the admittedly horrible price difference. But then we are retired, and use it for a lot of coffee (including instant @ 80C), other infusions and misc stuff.

[alan_m]

All cheap kettles these days have a a flat element surface covering the whole of the inside base of the kettle. These element are screen printed rather than being wire wound. You only need a 1/2mm of water above them.

My cheap kettle cuts off after around 5 seconds after the rolling boil.

If you are only boiling one cup of water and using it immediately what is the advantage of having a double walled container? You are not trying to keep the water at a set temperature for any length of time. The heat loss from a single walled container in the few minutes it takes to boil one cup/mug of water must be insignificant compared to a double walled container.

[The Natural Philosopher]

??? teabags are fully compostable. Mugs are not plastic

[The Natural Philosopher]

and get 20 million times f*ck all

To boil a kettle is about 1kW for a minute 1/605th of a unit or about 1/2p

even going for 4 kettles a day that's still less than £8 a year. There are easier ways of saving that

[Tim Streater]

I admit I'm not up to speed on the latest situation with teabags, but AIUI most (if not all?) teabags have historically been made wih a plastic web to reinforce the paper part of the bag. SWMBO discovered here that when she found that teabags wouldn't compost properly. I have heard talk that some teabag makers may have stopped including that plastic.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah. cheap brands may till use plastic.. I buy waitrose 'own brand' which are fully compostable

[alan_m]

A lot is down to personal taste and I buy tea (bags) that I like and avoid one I don't like. I was brought up with tea that is only fit for chimps and if served with it I still don't like it.

I also drink tea with milk but tend not to like it too much if it is full fat milk.

+1 (ish)

I prefer coffee but sometimes I will do the whole day drinking tea.

Some people look down on the tea bag and regard contents as the dust swept up from the floor but in my experience the bags I buy are more than OK for my tastes. It's much like the crowd that used to condemn the likes of Lidl and Aldi for only selling only poor quality food but without ever entering one of their stores.

The worst tea that I've tasted in the past year was one that came out a Fortnum & Mason hamper and was a tin of Fortnum & Mason branded Earl Grey loose leaf tea, and yes I do like Earl Grey. The loose leaf tea was placed in a large enclosed stainless steel strainer, placed in a mug and had boiling water poured over it. It didn't matter how long it sat in the water until removal - it just tasted "wrong" and nothing like other Earl Grey from various brands or in restaurants etc.

[alan_m]

The contents of teabags with a plastic component in the bag compost well

- what yo may be left with is a VERY fine ghost like empty plastic mesh, almost spider web like..

Some herbal teas that I've encountered have had a 100% plastic bag to allow bigger holes in the bag and to allow the water to circulate more easily. These I wouldn't compost. Personally I think most herbal infusions taste more like the water you get when you cook cabbage :)

I used to compost a lot of cardboard food packaging but since the food manufacturers have started to spout green bullshit about reducing the use of plastic bags in their packaging the cardboard outer layers have started to include an integral plastic film which doesn't compost. Removing this film from the compost is more than a PITA. The anti green aspect of this is that it makes recycling cardboard more expensive or possible generates more Co2 in the recycling process.

[Robin]

1kW for a minute gives 60,000 J. If we assume then

water starts at 15C kettle boils at 100C no loss of heat during boiling specific heat 4.2

your "kettle" is 60,000/((100-15) x 4.2) = 168g

I usually drink more than your 4 kettles every day before 09:00

[The Natural Philosopher]

<...>

Urban myth, tea in the bag is deliberatrely made fine to increase surface area and reduce brewing time.

I've been in Lidl and aldi. The food is cheap, but its not generally up to waitrose standards, and where it is, its no cheaper!

I dont eat a lot any more. I like it to taste really good.

I gave up on fancy teas, In a chinese restaurant I love jasmine tea, otherwise I drink English Breakfast tea bags, Its refined enough to be acceptable to tea snobs, and tastes enough like builder's bum tea without the bitterness for those who like a strong simple brew

[Sam Plusnet]

If you chose to buy that - fine.

The OP's problem was walking into a strange place and having to deal with a whole lot of equipment that seemed designed to make life as difficult as possible. If you are kitting out a holiday let, you really should try to use a bit of common sense.