1y ago

Sweet tea

You're viewing a single thread.

255 comments

Maybe the amount of sugar that cold water easily accepts is the correct amount to not taste like shit
- Yeah, and if you saturate hot tea, won''t the sugar simply materialize back as the tea gets colder? Seems to me that nothing about this has to do with saturation.
  
  Water can dissolve a ridiculous amount of sugar even at room temp. For an average 12 oz glass of tea, the most sugar that could dissolve is a whopping 700 grams. One packet of sugar is about 5 grams. At the saturation point it would be basically syrup thickness, too.
  
  Yes. Not sure what the other person is on about. Hot water can have more sugar dissolved in it. When it cools it crystalizes but only if the saturation level is higher than what the water can hold. It's how rock candy is made. This is like basic chemistry.
  
  It's not about achieving saturation, it's about how quickly it dissolves. The sugar packets would absolutely dissolve, if you stir vigorously for half an hour... Rate of dissolving varies as temperature. 9th grade chemistry...
  
  That wasn't the original argument now was it? If you're going to move goalposts then at least be halfway correct the first time.
  
  And here I was happy to learn something new on social media contradicting my previous knowledge lol. But yeah, I definitely intend on having a basic chemistry refresher video now!
  
  Hot water dissolves it much quicker, giving the illusion that it dissolved more. It's not actually saturated when you're trying to stir it into cold tea, it just dissolves extremely slowly. If you were to saturate it while hot (which would take an insane amount of sugar), then yes, it would recrystalise. But in pracrice, you need to dissolve it while hot because the more energetic molecular motion in the solution dissolves the sugar faster, since the heat is causing more effective collisions. Saturation point and the change thereof is, contrary to the proposal above, not a factor here, since everything is happening well below that point even with the sweetest teas commercially available.
  
  No, I can assure you sugar does not re-crystalize after being mixed in hot tea. It is super interesting how differently people view this subject just based on where they grew up.
  
  You're right with normal tea, but normal tea is never saturated. If you added another pound or so of sugar while hot, then let it cool, it would absolutely recrystalise (barring supersaturation). But you're right, that's not a factor in normal tea. It's about the rate of dissolution (which also depends on temperature), not saturation point.
  
  That is very interesting, and not something I remember from my very limited exposure to chemistry in school. Thanks for clearing that up!
  
  That is only because it's not saturated. If you added an ungodly amount of sucrose (and I like it ridiculously sweet but this would be undrinkable), it would recrystalise when chilled. That's why there's a controversy here. A saturated solution would recrystallise, but people are pointing out that tea obviously doesn't do that. That's simply because no one drinks it saturated. It's hard to stir in while cold because the rate of dissolution varies as temperature. That's why there's some confusing as to thinking it's about the saturation point. It's actually below it in both cases (hot and cold). To learn more about that mechanism, read about how reaction rate is affected by temperature.

255 comments