Scientists have found out why tea is not tasty in the microwave

Please tell me, have you ever brought water to a boil in the microwave and made tea from it? If so, remember if it tasted differently from tea brewed with water boiled in the usual way? If it was different and you want to know why, then I will now tell you everything in detail.

Scientists' new experiment

A group of physicists from America have established the reason why water, brought to a boil in a microwave oven, is not very good for making tea.

They even managed to fix the problem they discovered by developing a special glass with a silver coating. In it, the water in the microwave boils in the same way as in a regular (electric) kettle.

The scientists shared the results of the work done on the pages of the scientific journal AIP Advances.

If we consider the technical side, then a microwave oven is a fairly simple device. And in them, food is heated by beams of microwave radiation, which makes the water molecules in food vibrate.

So here is a group of American scientists headed by B. Zeng, carefully studied the issue and calculated what happens to different layers of water heated in a microwave oven.

So it turned out that the reason for the difference in the brewed tea was the fact that the water in the microwave is heated unevenly.

And all because when heating water on a gas or electric stove inside a kettle (or any other vessel) a convection process occurs - a process that transfers heated layers of water from the bottom to the top vessels.

But in a mug of water inside a microwave oven, there is simply no such convection. And this leads to a much stronger heating of the upper layers of the liquid and much less heating of the lower layers.

American scientists explain this phenomenon by the fact that there is no difference between the temperature of the top and bottom of the mug's walls.

So, starting from the conclusions made, physicists decided to modify the glass mug and covered the top of the glass with a thin layer of pure silver.

This refinement made it possible to redirect some of the microwave radiation to the lower half of the glass, thereby reducing the heating of the upper part.

With such a refinement, with the next heating of the liquid in the microwave, the effect of convection arose and the water boiled, just like in the classical version.

Why is all this necessary

Despite the fact that this work seems somewhat absurd and even unnecessary, scientists are sure that their discovery will allow significantly expand the scope of microwave ovens and improve their image among supporters of the "natural" method of cooking food.

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