An American scientist has sparked a trans-Atlantic tempest in a teapot by offering Britain advice on its favorite hot beverage.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11138800

An American scientist has sparked a trans-Atlantic tempest in a teapot by offering Britain advice on its favorite hot beverage.

Bryn Mawr College chemistry professor Michelle Francl says one of the keys to a perfect cup of tea is a pinch of salt. The tip is included in Francl’s book “Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea,” published Wednesday by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Not since the Boston Tea Party has mixing tea with salt water roiled the Anglo-American relationship so much.

The salt suggestion drew howls of outrage from tea-lovers in Britain, where popular stereotype sees Americans as coffee-swilling boors who make tea, if at all, in the microwave.

…

The U.S. Embassy in London intervened in the brewing storm with a social media post reassuring “the good people of the U.K. that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain’s national drink is not official United States policy.”

  • jak@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Is that in the article somewhere? I saw the reference to it being an American thing, but no mention of its healthiness.

    • GiveOver@feddit.ukEnglish
      8·
      10 months ago

      There’s a quote in the BBC article

      But chief among her advice is to never, ever heat up the water in a microwave: “It’s less healthy and it does not taste as good,” Prof Francl says.