Re: Let's get divalent

Making a stab at this here...

"DogMa" <DogMa_I@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%REOf.507554$qk4.95811@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This post concerns water and tea. Allow me to begin with an analogical
digression.

Several decades ago, as a pre-professional nerd, I read that sugar is
critical in many foods not as a source of sweetness per se, but as a
flavor potentiator like unto salt or MSG. This seemed possibly relevant to
the consuming problem of rapid flavor decay in so-called Juicy Fruit gum.
So I took a wad of post-sapid chicle, wrapped it around a pinch of table
sugar, and was astonished to find it entirely revivified. Fortunately for
Wrigley's fortunes (and my remaining teeth), I was too lazy to make this a
regular practice, and none of my cohort expressed interest in such a
life-extension methodology.

Apparently some people only call nucleotides etc. "flavor potentiaors" and
salt in this definition weouldn't be because it's a flavor by itself (in
other words, some people define flavor potentiator as something which
enhances flavor but has no flavor or smell profile of it's own). I only
bring this up becuase it would indicate a difference between salt and sugar
which have flavor, and MSG or nucleotides which are primarily acting as
potentiators (I'll give you the source for all this babble at the end of the
post). Anyhow...

Back to tea: I keep being disappointed on home-brewing rare and fine
wonders that delighted in-store or at others' homes. Water is clearly a
factor, most likely due to absence of needed solutes rather than presence
of contaminants. But I'm too lazy and cheap to schlep gallons of bottled
solvent, and also (after several years in the UK) averse to de-scaling the
kettle. So of late, I've been trying some post-brew experiments. These
have taken the form of adding a dash of bottled water to the gaiwan before
dousing with hot tap water. I use mineral rather than spring water, to get
a good slug of ions in the small addendum.

This has worked pretty well. So far, I've used Gerolsteiner, which may not
be an optimal mineral balance. (It is, however, the only one available
here in the woods.) It's still less than convenient, and makes it that bit
harder to control brewing temperature.

So in this case the minerals may act as extraction helpers or extraction
impactors more precisely.



So recently I've tried adding mineral water to the finished brew. This
goes against common wisdom about the effect of various solutes (including
oxygen) on extraction chemistry. -Common wisdom, I might add, absent
widely published evidence. Thus far, the effect has been just as
beneficial. Today, for example, I brewed a sample of Old Dong Ting from
NYC's wonderful Tea Gallery. (Disclosure: commercial connection; I spend
money there at every opportunity.) This exquisite tea went "flat" after
just three steeps in tap water. Adding a few ml of mineral water to the
poured cup added/restored multiple layers of sweetness, fruit, complexity.
And seemed to smooth over hints of roughness, somehow bringing the
smoke/roast into better balance with more intrinsic leaf notes. (Kind of
like the difference between 10- and 15-year-old Laphroaig, for those of
that persuasion.) I took out five more very tasty steeps before going out
to grease the Kioti.


And here the minerals acting as flavor potentiaotrs (I think Na, Ca and K
ions mostly) are presumably acting to trigger the neuronal gateway receptors
in the tastebuds...but if so, not just for salty or bitter but for the other
layers. Also I'd like to point out that there are still microscopic
particles of tea steeping in the brew even then, and the minerals could be
continuing to affect the extraction there. Not to mention the minerals
combining with the substances already extracted in the brew.

Now, here's the punch line: the bio-effect of a little added mineral water
seemed to persist. I alternated "spiked" and tap-water brews, rinsing the
cup between, and found them almost indistinguishable. Perhaps this
shouldn't be surprising: calcium is a dominant mediator of cellular and
neural activity, and charging the taste buds and proximal tissue with
divalent ions might have a persistent effect. Any biologists here able to
comment?

I was thinking about this...if a person gets tickled in the same spot
repeatedly they get desensitized, the neurons learn a new threashold for
stimulus, wouldn't the same hold true for taste? Actually, I don't know if
that wording is correct...I'd be more inclined to think that the processing
center for the neurons in the brain reaches a new threshold for knowing what
senseory level is important, since the actual polarity across neuronal
boundaries stays pretty steady in neurons after repolarization. What I mean
is that there is a build up of difference in charge up to the point of the
neuron firing but once it's gone back to it's er, base state (not very good
terminology) it's usually around -70 mv polarity, even if the nerve itself
has fired millions of times over the lifetime of the person or whatever.

So what does all that mean...perhaps the minerals aren't so much remaining
in the receptor cells as cluing in the brain that there are other tastes to
be had in the tea, and the brain is keeping that impression over alternating
infusions. The brain would have an impetus to do this as it is better to be
more aware about taste in something than dull.

Couple of websites that I looked at for relevant info:

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/Taste.html

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/E/ExcitableCells.html#action

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/archive/1992/0292DE.html


Anyway, the provisional conclusion: a very small addition of minerals can
apparently have a profound, persistent and positive effect on perceived
quality in brewed tea, without much effort. Your mouthfeel may vary.

-DM

Very very intersting, thanks for the discussion.

Melinda


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