Please Don’t Microwave Your Water for Tea

Oct 9

Please don’t microwave your water for tea.

I go into the scientific reasons why it really doesn’t heat the water in the same way.

As I mention in the video, water is 98% of your cup of tea, so I devote this video entirely to talking about water and most importantly why it is important to not microwave your water to heat it up.

Here's the article I mention from Slate Magazine with the detailed reasoning of why microwaving versus boiling your water makes a difference.

In this video I'm making a Japanese sencha green tea brewed in a Taiwanese hohin (that is missing it's lid because it broke many years ago).

CORRECTION! I meant to say "hohin" and not "tsubin" about the piece of Japanese influenced teaware that I'm using. Sorry about not double checking that before taping.

ANOTHER CORRECTION: Thanks to the wonderful people who have been commenting on the YouTube video (can you imagine some good in the comments section of a video on the internet?) we have more scientific precision in the explanation:

Thanks to user “Filipe Farinha”who clarified: “…the issue with over-boiling water is not the loss of oxygen as you can't split the oxygen from hydrogen just by heating it. The whole water molecule (H2O) does evaporate, so you end up with less H2O in the cup/pot, and that is the issue. Too much water evaporation increases the concentration of undesirable chemicals, contaminants or minerals in the water that remains, which is why it's also not recommended to repeatedly re-heat the same water multiple times in a kettle.”

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