I've been running a long term experiment on Stevia solubility, in both coffee and tea. After taking nearly 6 months of data, I have the following conclusions:1) Solubility of Stevia is temperature dependent. Add it to an iced coffee, and it will clump considerably. Much stirring will be necessary to break up the clumps - which can be crushed against the side of the glass or cup with a spoon, but not so easily. Add it to nearly boiling water, and it will instantly vaporize upon entry into the solution, with a "sizzling" sound - I am not sure if that is denaturing any of the molecular bonds... but it is an instant dispersal.
2) Add Stevia prior to tea. Before you place your tea bag into hot water, put the Stevia in. THEN, put the tea bag in. Adding the tea bag first, the Stevia tends to cling, and clump onto the bag, increasing the heterogeneity of the concentration in the solution.
3) Hot Topping is preferred, to cold topping. When I traveled around the world as a quality engineer for 3 years with a veteran 40 year metallurgist who came from the aircraft industry, I learned about hot topping and cold topping in ESR and VAR alloy steel making. Hot topping is putting the catalyst in the bottom of the ingot and advancing the hot electrode down into it. Cold topping is putting the catalyst on top of the hot ingot, and hoping all the nasty imperfections rise up and get bonded there - we never actually qualified any third world suppliers who practiced cold topping... but I digress. Putting the Stevia in the bottom of the cup, and THEN adding hot coffee on top, virtually guarantees that you don't need to stir. The hot liquid's hydrodynamics did all the stirring for you, and distributed the delicious sweetener homogeneously throughout the mixture.
This Mother's Day, Dr Desert Flower and I are enjoying Stevia in our coffee. We hope you have a wonderful mother's day too!
Same with cream in coffee -- cream in first is best.
ReplyDeleteI got a little worried when you started talking about how you learned all about "hot topping" and "cold topping" while traveling the world with an older man. Maybe that's the kind of confession you wouldn't want DDF to hear first on a blog post. But, um, thanks for clarifying.
Oh, DDF knew and met my buddy Jerry - he was from Brooklyn, and sometimes spoke in a Bugs Bunny accent. Your referral reminds me of the time we flew from Melbourne to Sydney. The customer we were meeting with in Melbourne told us "Mardis Gras is this weekend in Sydney, make sure you go to the parade!". The forging foundry never mentioned it was "Gay Mardi Gras" so we fly to Sydney, get a Hertz rental car, and Jerry tells the very butch looking Hertz lady "we can't wait to get to Mardis Gras!" .... she looks us over with a smile.. and says.. "oh.. ok". At the hotel, the door man welcomes us, and Jerry asks him "which way to the parade?" the doorman too, gives us a look... 5'2" Jerry and his big boy toy, 30 years younger... he points us to the parade.
ReplyDeleteAt the parade, we see topless blue painted lesbians on harleys, ass-less chaps groups of men dancing in synchronous to "It's raining men", and a 20 foot tall papermachet float of the prime minister waving his finger, shouting "pooftah!" "faggot" "nancy boy!"
The next day... Jerry wanted to go opal shopping for his wife (Australia produces most of the world's opals). When the shop owner asked if I wanted to try it on for size, I rolled my eyes, and left the store for Jerry to shop alone.
I don't wanna be any man's boy toy, thanks. =P
that's great!
ReplyDeleteAnd "which way to the parade?" is really a suitable question for almost any situation.
= ) LOL
ReplyDelete