“Tempest in a teapot” . . . “In hot water” . . . “Stirred the pot” . . . “Getting salty over tea”
Headline writers had a field day with the British response to Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, published January 24. Author Michelle Francl, a professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College, wrote that a pinch of salt improves the taste of tea. Francl looked into that tip from an eighth-century Chinese manuscript and found that salt blocks tongue receptors for bitterness.