Tea

[Mountain Goat]

I want to make a cup of tea....i want it to be as strong as possible. which of the following two methods would yield a cup with more tea in it ? 1. if i just put a tea bag in a single cup of boiled water for 2 minutes then remove it. OR 2. if i put a tea bag in half filled cup for one minute then remove it and put it into another half filled cup for another minute, remove it and then combine the contents of both half filled cups. Show me mathematically which would have a higher concentration.

[EdEarl]

Neither, put the tea bag in a much larger container and boil it for longer. Then boil the solution, letting the water evaporate, until you have a cup of tea as strong as possible. Is this a trick question, or do you want to know which method 1 or 2 will make stronger tea. If this is not a trick question, why do you ask, is this a homework problem (in which case it should be in the homework help forum). It it is a trick question, it might be better in the Brain Teasers and Puzzles forum.

Edited June 2, 2013 by EdEarl

[John Cuthber]

I think the answer is "it depends"

[Mountain Goat]

if i ask "which of the two methods would yield a stronger cup of tea" its pretty obvious that its either a 'cup 1' ; 'cup 2' or 'both the same' answer. i didnt ask for alternative methods to make tea. this isnt a trick queation.

depends on what?

[John Cuthber]

Lets pretend that the tea is just one simple chemical which isn't very soluble, and there's enough of it to saturate the water.

In that case it doesn't matter which method you use: all the tea ends up as a saturated solution.

On the other hand, if you say the tea is mainly insoluble stuff with a little soluble material added then, again, it doesn't matter.

All the soluble stuff dissolves whether you add one lot of water or two.

 

The interesting case is where the material is somewhat soluble but also, to some extent, "sticks" to the insoluble stuff (like cellulose) present in the leaf.

 

In that case you end up with a system similar to this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_coefficient

And in this case, two extractions are better than one.

 

Tea contains a lot of different chemicals and probably all three situations occur with some of the components.

So, overall, the two extractions may work better.

But it's also possible that the materials which extract better in two stages don't taste nice- in which case you do better with a single extraction if you want nice tea.

[Mountain Goat]

have u considered that you remove the tea bag when you are done? not all the soluble tea particles is removed from the bag on its removal from the cup so is it safe to say that whichever method leaves the bag with less soluble tea particles in it would yield a stronger cup of tea?

[Amaton]

Lets pretend that the tea is just one simple chemical which isn't very soluble, and there's enough of it to saturate the water.

In that case it doesn't matter which method you use: all the tea ends up as a saturated solution.

 

Pssh, you call that a strong? We tea extremists prefer tea solvent diluted with some water, thank you very much.