Some Like It Hot: Tea, But at the Right Temperature, Please.
There is no hot drink as pleasurable to sip than a cup of tea at its perfect drinking temperature, but getting tea at its best needs a certain degree of patience. It can be lip scaldingly hot at first, so timing is crucial here. Wait too long and it will be disappointingly cool, but there is a perfect temperature for each of us. For me, it is 57.3C precisely. I know this because I am a sad, tea anorak and have measured it.
My wife, though, can tolerate far, far hotter drinks, and food, than I. She likes to drink her cuppa at an astonishing 75C. Her mouth, I think, must have an asbestos lining to it as she can also plough through, what is to me, a scream-inducingly hot lasagne, with all the indifference of a slightly bored gazelle, munching dew-kissed blades of grass.
Where I do excel though, is my ability to consume food that is cold. I can happily eat leftovers straight from the fridge, whereas my wife will insist on them being heated laboriously in a pan, or a microwave.
Anyone that enjoys pizza at 4c, fresh out of the salad crisper drawer, will know what I mean. A food’s flavour often improves after a night in a fridge. Stews seem to marinate well, their flavours bumping, sometimes entwining with each other like a bunch of 6th formers at an end of term party. It is surprising how flavours change after a night of mellowing together in total darkness and the inside of your fridge is possibly the darkest place in your house, sealed, as it is, with an airtight door. But I digress. Where was I? Ah yes, the temperature of drinks.
The National Coffee Association insists that water used to actually brew coffee should always be between 90C and 96C. Any hotter and the grounds will scald, leaving a burnt taste. Boiling water should never be used. As for serving coffee, it is best drunk between 60C and 75C, but this varies from person to person and, as already discussed, husband and wife.
You should never use boiling water to make tea, as it can ruin the delicate flavour notes. The best advice seems to be, after the kettle has boiled, you can get roughly the right temperature by letting it stand to cool for a minute or two. I find that standing for a minute or two also works for husbands and wives, after any disagreements or arguments. The temperature of drinks is a fiercely debated topic.
Most alcoholic drinks are left around at room temperature. Some of us, probably because our parents did, may have a “drinks cabinet” which I always think is a very grown-up thing to own. When you open it, you are confronted with your usual tipples, but these are merely a front to hide the weird collection of strangely coloured drinks, usually bought on holiday, and now left in the dark recesses. They only get an outing when you have a cocktail party (once every 3 years) or when a nosey babysitter investigates. The notable exceptions to this room temperature collection are gin and vodka, which are best served chilled over ice.
The Gin and Vodka Association of Great Britain say that ice emphasizes the fresh taste of these spirits. Some people choose to keep their gin in the freezer, especially in the summer months. Alcohol has a much lower freezing point than the temperature of any domestic freezer and cold booze is essential. There is little that is worse than a warm gin & tonic.
According to German beer experts, (how the hell do people get jobs like that?) quality bottled lagers, shouldn't be served any colder than 6C and any warmer than 9C, and not “as cold as possible” as many marketers would have us believe. Adverts where icy beers are served so cold that nearby windows start to frost over, are frowned upon by those in the know (those bloody beer experts again. Note to self, search online for any beer expert vacancies).
And what about wine? According to Wine Enthusiast magazine, red wine is best served between 12C – 16C which is actually “chilled” for much of the tropical world.
Room temperatures vary wildly, depending on where on our spinning globe you live. If you happen to reside in Mitribah, Kuwait, and, like most locals, don’t have air-con, it can reach 53.9C in August which, coincidentally, was the hottest the oven in my first student flat would ever reach.
And strangely, is exactly my preferred hot tea temperature. It’s a funny old world.
Written by Jerry Short
Jerry is a freelance writer, who has worked as a wildlife film producer for the BBC, a journalist, a musician and a narrator. He has a lifelong interest in science, has been stalked by lions, swum with sharks and is addicted to watching cookery programmes and is definitely a "foodie". His heroes are Douglas Adams and Charles Darwin.