Greetings caffeinated pilgrims of tea trivia. It’s time to tackle some of the hardest questions asked by this race we call human.
Doug is back to shine a light of truth onto the dark spots of our tea based collective knowledge.
So sharpen your pencils, introduce hot water to some kind of desiccated plant matter and let’s go back to school!
Does tea count as water intake
Yes of course it does, regardless of what the people working for the drinks bottle makers would have you think.
Tea is made from water and the diuretic effect of the relatively small amounts of caffeine found in it makes the diuretic effect pretty negligible for most people. I think we’ve written about this somewhere else… Let me look: 15 cups is probably too many.
Does decaf tea have caffeine
Yes but at levels below the sensitivity threshold for our bodies to recognise its effects, around 2-5 milligrams per cup. Compare that to a cup of ordinary black tea that has around 20-50 milligrams of caffeine or coffee which has something like 95 milligrams or more and it’s clearly negligible.
How many teabags for a gallon of iced tea
Right, let’s convert this into a more logical, simple, scalable, universal applicable, less error prone system of measurement.
We’ll have to use some assumptions too because of course ‘a gallon’ could mean an imperial gallon or a US gallon, both of which differ wildly.
1 US gallon = 3800 ml
1 cup of tea = 250 ml
But one teabag can easily yield 500 ml of good strength tea.
3800 / 500 = 7.6 tebags. Round that up to 8 teabags for a gallon or 10 for a stronger brew.
Baking soda in sweet tea
Not sure on this one. Probably something to do with baking soda being alkaline. I remember people putting it in the water when boiling sprouts too much to remove the bitterness back before we found out that you don’t need to boil vegetables for an hour.
The bitterness in tea is caused by tannins so its follows that baking soda neutralises them and makes for a smoother, less bitter sip.
Upon some quick Google based research, the ratio seems to be about 1.2 grams of baking soda for 3.8 litres of tea.
I’m going to give this one a try!
How to make British tea
Teabag, boiling water, stir, remove bag, milk, maybe sugar, complain about the weather, get biscuit. Enjoy.
Optional step: offer a cup to colleagues out of politeness then seethe when one or more people accept.
Benefits of green tea with lemon
I will point you towards our recent blog post: The health benefits of tea according to Chanui for the more generalised answer.
However, adding lemon brings with it vitamin C which it turns out is brilliant for all sorts of things like immune support, wound healing and iron absorption.
It’s also something we can’t synthesise in our bodies… hence scurvy… so we have to get it from our food.
Apparently pigs can synthesise vitamin C and when they’re ill, the levels spike massively as a response to stress.
All that is to say by all means put a bit of lemon in your green tea. Particularly if you’re suffering from scurvy.
Best tea for heart health
The answer is usually green tea so I’ll say green.
Does hot tea help with constipation
That’s a personal question.
Does tea wake you up
Not really. It’s more about preventing you from feeling sleepy. It’s a subtle difference but an important one to understand.
Basically, caffeine works by blocking adenosine, a neurotransmitter that promotes sleepiness. Good rest, deep sleep and literally waking up wakes you up.
I guess tea might help to stop you from wanting to go back to sleep.
When was iced tea invented
This came up last week! Go read our blog: Iced tea: Technological innovation worthy of the World's Fair
In short, as early as the 1870s, probably way earlier, made popular around 1904.
Is tea better than water
Yes obviously but as discussed above, tea kind of is water so this question is a bit silly.
Water temp for black tea
100°C or 212°F
Don’t get me started on Celsius.
Final thoughts
The more of these questions I look at, the more I realise that tea is just bloody brilliant isn’t it? It’s delicious, stimulating and good for you. I’ve said it a thousand times: more tea = more happy. Why not treat yourself to one right now!