On Sep 8, 11:10Â am, Square Peg wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Sep 2008 04:06:49 -0700 (PDT), Rainy
gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>>On Sep 8, 4:51Â am, Square Peg wrote:
>
> Now you are changing the rules again. ou said you could tell the
> difference between a glass kettle on a gas range vs an electric range.
> Using an electric kettle where the heating element is in direct
> contact with the water introduces at least one more variable.
> Personally, I still doubt you could tell the difference, but that's a
> harder expermient.
I'm not changing rules, I've just been telling you two
things:
1. When an electric range or Zoji pot is used, results
are very different vs. a gas range.
2. When you use a different electric kettle, my guess
is (because I never used such kettles), again, only my
_guess_ is that results could also be noticeably
different. That's part of why I don't want to spend too
much on an electric kettle. I showed you a few
*possible* reasons of why an electric kettle might
make tea that tastes differently.
>
>
> Sure, but these are the same for both ranges in our experiment above.
This refers to your point that we're just heating H2O molecules.
If that were the case I would agree that heating source should
not matter, although there's still a factor of number of ions and
dissolved oxygen, so it might still matter.. just less so.
>
>>For pH levels? For possible criteria that is unknown
>>to either of us?
>
> Sure, but these are the same for both ranges in our experiment above.
>
>>Good kettles for gas ranges use enamel on the
>>inside, to avoid metallic taste in water. Do
>>electric kettles have enamel coating on the inside?
>
> You are changing the rules again. If you prefer to use enamel-coated
> kettles, then we'll use two identical enamel-coated kettles and rerun
> the experiment.
>
>>If you are a physicist who worked
>>on this question for a few decades, I think you
>>would appreciate that this is a complex matter.
>
> I think I have a better appreciation for the complexity than you do.
> That's why I am trying so hard to get you to stand still and quit
> changing the rules.
>
>>Since neither you or me studied this in detail,
>>I have only my taste to go by.
>
> And I am willing to leave 100%% of the results up to you and your
> vaunted taste. I'm just going to eliminate as many other factors as I
> can.
>
> When I was in graduate school, I took a class on research methods. One
> day, we ran an experiment somewhat similar to this, but with Coke and
> Pepsi. The professor first passed out a questionnaire asking each
> student to answer questions about how many cola drinks they drink,
> whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi.
>
> A couple of students were selected to go in the other room on the
> other side of the two-sided window and prepare paper cups of Coke or
> Pepsi as in the procedure above. Since we had about 20-25 students,
> they actuially passed 5 trays through. One with cups labelled "1", one
> with cups labelled "2", and so forth. Each student was given one cup
> from each tray.
>
> This expermient is different from the tea expermient because there
> really is a difference between Coke and Pepsi.
>
> Guess what the results were? No one could reliably tell the
> difference. It's been a long time, but I think the most accurate
> "guesser" was only about 60%% right. If I recall correctly, no one was
> even very good at correctly identifying which cups were from the same
> bottle, even if they couldn't tell which brand.
>
> What I do remember was that the avid Coke or Pepsi drinkers were
> actually a little worse than those who professed no preference. Ego?
> Probably. And those who said they never drink colas were about as
> accurate as any other group.
>
> I had a very good time that day.
This is in a contrast to a very well known experiments where
more people prefer the taste of Pepsi vs. Coke in blind
tests, even though they think they like Coke
better. Reason? Probably because Pepsi is simply sweeter.
Those were conducted by Pepsi and they made ads about
the whole thing. I think they did them very carefully because
flawed study would be criticized by Coke and they'd
make sure everyone hears about that. So far as I know
Coke did not protest about the study, so it must be
as squeky clean as they come.
>
> OK, I'm done now. We're never going to run this experiment, of course,
> and you and I will probably continue to believe what we believe.
Well, the thing is that I know of variations in taste
of tea due to using less leaf, getting temperature
a bit lower or higher, etc. I guesstimate both
temperature and amount of leaf. I have scales
but they're not comfortable enough to use
daily so I just put approximate amount in.
And here's the thing.. sometimes I get tea
that's stronger, sometimes weaker, but it's
never *nearly* as different as tea made with an
electric range. Even if I forget to separate
leaves, which happens sometimes, and brew
silver needles for 8 minutes instead of 4,
it's far too strong but it still tastes much better
than electric range silver needles!
With green tea it's a bit different, if left too
long it becomes too vegetal very quickly,
so I usually just get rid of it (i.e. green
tea left for ~8 minutes).
With electric range, there's no way I'd
throw out tea that could be pretty
expensive, $40 for 1/4lb or so, unless
there was something seriously wrong
with it. I never finished a pot made with
electric range! So that should tell
you something.
>
> Peace.
>
> PS: I do hope you find a few extra bucks so you can get an electric
> kettle that makes your life easier. And I hope that, if you do, that
> splurging like that does not plunge you back into a self-defeating
> spiral of over-spending and backruptcy. ;-)
I'm pretty sure that I'll end up going back to using gas range,
because of taste. Electric kettle is much better for gong-fu,
though, but since I brew using regular method in 95%% of
cases, it doesn't make sense to spend more than $40-50
on a pot I'd only use very rarely (if at all!).
