What difference does oxygen content of tea water make?
I've heard the advice that water should be boiled for tea only one--that when boiled it loses dissolved oxygen, and if there is insufficient oxygen in the water, the flavor of the tea is (somehow) affected.
This doesn't seem to make sense to me. If the water loses oxygen when it is boiled, it would have lost it before tea ever touched it anyway.
Does this really make a difference, or is it just a commonly perpetuated kitchen myth? If there is one, what affect does the oxygen (or lack) have on the finished product?
Best Answer
All moving water has dissolved oxygen in it. That is what fish breath
Dissolved oxygen is reactive, and will most likely extract more substances from the tea leaf, than without it. If these are the good flavour parts of tea, I do not know?
When you heat water it starts to release the dissolved oxygen. The more you heat water the more oxygen escapes
You can buy tea making kettles that bring water up to 95°C (203°F), but not boiling, so as to decrease the amount of dissolved oxygen lost, but still making the water hot enough to brew tea. They also save energy :-) I use one of these, and am happy with it
Some people "watch" their kettle, and switch it off just before the water boils!
It is a personal taste preference if tea tastes better when brewed in water with more dissolved oxygen or not
Pictures about "What difference does oxygen content of tea water make?"
Does boiled water have less oxygen in it?
It appears that most of the dissolved oxygen will have been lost by the time the water reaches 75C, and that boiling would cause little additional loss.What is the importance of oxygen in boiling water?
During boiling, water loses oxygen important for a human body. It is the large molecules of oxygen that have an ability to \u201cattract\u201d other substances and provide their transportation to the blood and all other cells in the body. Lack of free oxygen in boiled water has no direct harm, but it is not beneficial either.Is more oxygen in water good?
How Dissolved Oxygen Affects Water Supplies. A high DO level in a community water supply is good because it makes drinking water taste better. However, high DO levels speed up corrosion in water pipes. For this reason, industries use water with the least possible amount of dissolved oxygen.What increases oxygen levels in water?
Oxygen enters water through diffusion from air, wind and wave action and plant photosynthesis. Dissolved oxygen levels are increased by supplementing wind and wave action, adding plants to water and exposing water to purified oxygen.Boards To Wards: Total Oxygen Content
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Answer 2
This blog article (citing numerous sources) claims that re-boiling water doesn't have any significant effect on tea taste. Here are some key points from it:
Heating water above 50?C already removes most of the oxygen from it, so neither once-boiled nor twice-boiled water contain significant amounts of oxygen.
Triangle tests such as this one prove that dissolved oxygen by itself doesn't affect water taste.
While oxygen could theoretically reduce tannin's concentration in tea, this effect is dwarfed by other factors, notably steeping time, water temperature, and water/tea ratio.
All this is not to say that water is unimportant. Water is important. Alkalinity is important. Salt content is important. Minimal iron content is super important. Dissolved oxygen is not important. [...] For brewing tea, coffee, or any other hot beverage, dissolved gases are irrelevant.
Answer 3
I agree with your suspicion. While boiling water most likely does cause it to lose some of its oxygenation, the bubbles and steam you see while boiling water do not come from the oxygen trapped in the water.
Water boils when you heat it enough for the water to begin acting as a gas. The reason boiling water bubbles is because the heat source is generally on the bottom, so the first water molecules to become gaseous are on the bottom and then bubble up.
Saying boiling water releases its inner oxygen is akin to saying that ice is not water and in fact simply traps water inside.
If you're worried about oxygenation, try pouring your cup of tea in various methods:
- boil it in the mug (microwave?)
- boil then pour into a cup
- boil then pour a few times in to a cup
- get a straw and blow some bubbles in your cup
- try using seltzer water to make tea...?
Anyways, I could be wrong, but the whole concept seems a little silly.
Happy tea drinking :]
Answer 4
This person found that increased oxygen in the water resulted in milder, less tannic tea:
https://cookingwithnumbers.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/does-oxygenating-water-improve-tea/
Rather than boiling and reboiling water, they oxygenated water by bubbling air through it - so it doesn't exactly indicate what the effect would be from repeated boiling.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Josh Sorenson, Andrea Piacquadio, Andrea Piacquadio, Monstera