Well that was interesting...
I accidentally made a tea concentrate, and it was actually pretty good. Wellll… it was drinkable. ^__^
About a year ago, my sister shipped me a couple bags of her favorite loose tea, and I've kept it in mason jars to enjoy gradually while remaining pretty fresh (the tea, not myself). I hadn't made it in a while, so I made some the other day and rather enjoyed it (with a bit of #stevia for sweetness). I made a second batch to enjoy and… promptly forgot it (#adhd says hello! XD
So, I did what all good #tea enthusiasts forswear: I nuked it.
I don't remember the exact reasoning, but I decided I actually wanted to boil it down a bit in the microwave so I could add hot water to it and enjoy it later. So I initially nuked it for six minutes and it boiled down half way. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I guess I thought I'd boil it down another half-way with six more minutes of nuking. No, it boiled down to a few very dark drops of liquid at the bottom of the cup.
So, I transferred it to a small plastic cup (probably a mistake) and put it in the fridge.
That was all several days ago, probably a week ago.
Today, I go look in the fridge, and the tea concentrate is no longer a liquid. It is a polymer. XD
So, I throw some boiling water on top of the tea-polymer, swirl it around, and dump it into my mug. I then add more boiling water on top and… it's honestly not terrible! (But for future reference, boiling liquids and cheap plastic cups don't mix. Nothing bad happened, but the structure became a little weak, and I have no idea how many iffy hydrocarbons leached into my tea.
Probably won't make a habit of creating tea-polymers in the future, but it was an interesting experiment.
cc: tea people for their cheers and jeers XD
@amin @eltheanine @dheadshot and probably @SolusSpider
#tea #chai #TeaAbuse #TeaPolymer #InstantTea #KitchenExperiments #MadScientist