Dave Croft > wrote:

RC>> Mr. Ma, you are one of this forum's most brilliant theatheologists.
RC>> I was once interested in high-pressure tea (but more secularly
RC>> motivated) and tried to get an Israeli rfdt reader to go to a spa on
RC>> the Dead Sea, make tea, and report. He never did, as far as I know.
RC>> But even the Dead Sea would give us only a single data point. Does
RC>> anyone have access to a hyperbaric chamber? Although I work at a
RC>> hospital, we don't treat many bends cases in Wisconsin.
RC>> Rick.

DC> Hi Rick. Have a read of Douglas Adams page.
DC> (He wrote The Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy)
DC> http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/000492.html
DC> He not only covers our attitude to the temperature of water needed
DC> to make the correct English Tea but also covers the problems of doing
DC> the same at different heights.
DC> He can probably advise you of how to do it in another Galaxy. 8^)

Douglas Adams certainly continues the tradition of granitic British
uncompromise with regards to tea, from George Orwell's instructions on
holding steady during wartime rationing to Dr. Muriel Bristol's
insistence that the order of milk vs. tea addition to the cup was of
cardinal importance (thus, legendarily, leading to a new branch of
statistics) to sir Edmond Hillary's famous lament about weak tea on
Mt. Everest. But he doesn't say what to do at altitude. Neither
does the following text (not Adams') at the cited website:


Simple enough but I have a question; one I think Douglas
Adams would appreciate. The essential element in making
that proper cup is that the water must be boiling. Now
Douglas was a Brit, and he lived at sea level, and therein
lies the problem. I live in Utah approximately 4500 feet
(1372 meters) above sea level and since altitude has a
definite effect on the temperature at which water boils
there is a problem. Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit
(100 Celsius). For each increase of 500 feet (152 meters)
of altitude the Fahrenheit temperature at which water boils
goes down 1 degree. That means in my kitchen water boils at
203 degrees Fahrenheit (95 Celsius). Boiling as Douglas
insists it must, but certainly not the same boiling that
occurs at sea level. Does this mean I will never experience
a proper cup of tea in Sandy Utah? I wonder if this applies
to my coffee. Would anyone care to offer a solution to this
problem?

My first solution was a literal solution: put the sugar in the kettle
instead of the cup, raising the boiling point. But I found that, if I
got all my constants right, one teaspoon of sucrose in a six fluid
ounce cup of tea will raise the boiling point by about .07 degrees
Fahrenheit, accounting for only a 33-foot ascent. Not much.
(Calculations, which may well be wrong, available by request.) So we
are still left with a hyperbaric chamber or nothing. Or green tea, of
course. The market is now ripe for altitude-specific blends, which
should of course come with topographic maps showing where they should
be steeped with boiling water (or not steeped at all).

Writing from the bowels of a blizzard,

Rick.