Comment by chunksthree
3 years ago
It definitely will. After a couple years of experimentation and testing I've found anything over ~200F is basically undrinkable. It took me so long to figure this out because there were a lot of confounders -- I drank a lot of tea over the holidays back home, and while my parents' town is on the same water source I swear their florination is different, in a way that changes the mouth feel of the tea. I also had a new faucet installed and the galvanization in the new fixture left a strange aftertaste that took some time to track down. It was so bad that I seriously wonder how people can drink things that come out of Kohler faucets. Finally, I had some new mugs that were also causing problems...turns out the were only fired once? I'm not really sure how to describe it but it was kind of like drinking tea out of a soda can. Anyway, I eventually controlled for all this stuff and about 190F is the sweet spot. It's kind of embarrassing how much of an odyssey this all turned out to be, What works for other HNers?
200F = 93.3C, 190F = 87.8C. Really, we're talking about boiling, why would one even consider using Fahrenheit?
In some places, most of your instruments will likely be in Fahrenheit and Fahrenheit is what you use daily for most tasks. It only makes sense that you use Fahrenheit as your reference point.
A home in other places is more likely to have Celcius, and you'll likely use it.
It isn't like it is difficult to convert.
No, it is very hard to convert.
The US has about 4% of the world population. Adapt. It's not worth the communication problems.
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On the contrary Fahrenheit and Celsius is one of the harder units to convert. Can't just "halve and remove 10%" in your head like you can for pounds. Though I agree with you that you can't expect Americans to use SI units.
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Unfortunately, a lifetime in the U.S. has left me with poor intuition for Celsius. The conversion isn't difficult to do in ones head and for laboratory work, naturally, it's just as easy to read one thermometer scale as another. For everyday life, weather reports, fever thermometer readings, thermostats and such, it is just a nuisance to convert from Fahrenheit and back. If someone tells me it's 15 degrees C outside I have to do mental arithmetic to know if I should take a sweater. Furthermore, from a purely logical perspective perhaps we should even consider using Kelvin.
It's a completely different story for distance, weight and volume. Metric measurement in these cases are more intuitive for me, and they are clearly superior too. Millimeters are so much easier to use than fractions of an inch (7/32 inch -- that's a ridiculous system). In the U.S., an ounce of flour weighs less than an ounce of gold. Who even knows how much a grain of gunpowder is in units anyone else uses (one grain is approximately 1/16 gram). There are three teaspoons in one tablespoon, but only two cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart and 4 quarts in a gallon.
I'd be happy to switch from imperial to SI units for length, mass, and volume. I'll gladly switch slugs to kilograms and pounds to Newtons, but I will miss Fahrenheit.
> In the U.S., an ounce of flour weighs less than an ounce of gold.
Wait, what?
I mean: WHAT?!
There's a children's riddle here: "what weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of lead."
I hesitate to ask what the US answer to this would be.
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Once you know 100 is boiling, a simple rhyme helps to remember Celsius for common weather temperatures:
30 is hot.
20 is pleasing.
10 is cold.
And 0 is freezing.
As much as I prefer Celsius and have no idea what temperatures are in Fahrenheit, it seems quite obvious why people will use it - because it’s what one knows and what is used where one live.
Even as an Aussie I have to disagree with you here. The commenter at least put Fahrenheit in the degree.
People are allowed to communicate in a way that they're familiar with. If they have used F their entire life and so has everyone around them, then its fine.
The US demographic represents roughly 41% of Hacker News, I think its fine if they use their own measurement system.
This reads like someone copypasted a post from some audiophile forum, then replaced words to make it tea-themed :) "The basically unlistenable hdmi cable has been only gold-plated once, and the direction of the signal is wrong". Haha, no offence, just made me smile
I got into green tea around 2014 (my how time flies) and I've had a lot of experiences.
Depending on how sensitive you are everything can change the taste, but IMO the big three are:
- water (huge, huge differences)
- type of tea (cultivar, when/ where it was harvested, steam time)
- brew temp and time
I eventually settled on a system where I heat filtered water in a regular pot with a meat thermometer to the right temp (this is usually between 155-170F depending on the specific tea), pour over tea into a glass pot (through stainless steel basket), brew from 30-60 seconds (again depending on tea), serve. I also measure the water, and weigh the tea on a scale.
It might sound convoluted and compared with like, brewing a kettle and dumping over a bag it is. I mostly drink earl grey now, probably as a result. In the summers it's a lot easier, I just dump tea in a pitcher of water and put it in the fridge overnight.
Also, I wholeheartedly recommend o-cha.com for tea and peripherals.
I read that soft and low mineral water makes the best tea and tried to use water with such values bought from market. It was trash. Tap water where I live is very hard and have a good taste and the tea is much better with it - so my experience contradicts what I found about the topic on the net.
Are there any objective parameters of water which makes a better green tea?
Honestly I'm not sure; I think it has to be down to personal preference. I once had tap water in the Midwest that made delicious tea, conversely NYC's famous water was fine. The variation, plus the bonkers amount of contaminants in tap water led me to get a tank with the "lead plus" or whatever filters. It's definitely more "sterile", but on the theory that lead, PFAS, a slurry of medications and a smattering of other minerals is delicious, I'm fine with that.
If we're talking japanese green tea, 50C for a very gentle taste、70~80C for a full taste are the basic directions, same as you'll get recommended by the tea makers themselves (an english site [0])
190F(85C) requires more timing control and get out the tea after less than a minute, while lower temperatures are more forgiving.
[0] https://www.theteamakers.co.uk/blogs/news/japanese-tea-brewi...
Caution is advised here. Teas can vary wildly from producer to producer, fixing methods and even from year to year and the extraction vessels, brewing methods and even the water heating and temp measuring methods play a significant role.
Anecdotal evidence: The temps for my daily drinker (a deep steamed sencha) this year are 10°C lower (57) than last year. This is after keeping everything else constant.
> Finally, I had some new mugs that were also causing problems...turns out the were only fired once?
The mugs were causing problems because they were only fired once? There is supertasting, and then there's this. I am glad I don't have these problems.
Have you considered writing a blog or posting your thoughts about your experience and journey in finding the “perfect” tea brew? I’m sure your thoughts would save many amateurs a lot of frustrations. I, myself, am intrigued how nuanced the process is
It's still highly dependent on the specific tea. Definitely 190 I'd say is an absolute ceiling for green, but I have green teas I let nowhere near that - some even 170 max.