Add tea ball after microwaving

[dmaze]

The hot water tap on our espresso machine is apparently dead, I'm not sure how permanently. I've tried making tea by taking a cup of water and feeding it through the microwave, and then proceeding as normal, but it just isn't quite the same. Have other people noticed this? Is there a good technical reason for it?

Comments

Oxygen...

[rjpb.livejournal.com]

The usual explanation I've heard for this is that the microwave deaerates the water. If you overboil the water in a normal kettle, you end up with the same effect: tea that tastes flat. People usual say that water with a high oxygen content makes the best tasting tea, but I'm not sure it is simply the dissolved oxygen that prevents flatness; oxygen's solubility is highly temperature dependent, dropping off very rapidly at higher temperatures according to charts I've seen.

I'd be curious if you find any chemists to test this.