I’m not a scientist by any means but I’m pretty sure it’s the temperature that matters when steeping the tea. You can use hot - but not boiling - water just fine.
I don’t really think tea brewed at a lower temperature tastes the same, I’m guessing it’s because the relative rates that different flavor compounds go from the tea to the water change at different temperatures, but the main noticeable effect is that tea brewed cold is usually less astringent for a given concentration of other flavor.
I’m not a scientist by any means but I’m pretty sure it’s the temperature that matters when steeping the tea. You can use hot - but not boiling - water just fine.
So I’d say: probably not
you can make tea by just putting a tea bag in cold water and letting it sit for a few hours.
We make iced tea all the time without any hot water it tastes the same as if you boil the water. Just takes longer and of course isn’t warm.
I don’t really think tea brewed at a lower temperature tastes the same, I’m guessing it’s because the relative rates that different flavor compounds go from the tea to the water change at different temperatures, but the main noticeable effect is that tea brewed cold is usually less astringent for a given concentration of other flavor.
Follow up question: if I put water into a hyperbaric chamber and heated it to around 200c, would the tea steep in half the time?
You’d probably just burn the tea. Also as soon as you took it out of the chamber, the whole cup of tea would just sort of explode.
Could be a fun thing to film in slow motion, but not really useful though.