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We reviewed the American ‘salt in tea’ trend to see if it was any good — and were surprised, to say the least

Spoilers: at how utterly cr*p it was.

Danny Jones - 25th January 2024

You might have seen the deeply disturbing news that a US scientist has claimed that putting salt in your tea makes for the ‘perfect brew’ — but we’ve all seen the kind of barbaric things Americans do to the good stuff.

However, if there’s one thing we pride ourselves on here in Greater Manchester it’s being open-minded, so we didn’t want to just go ahead and condemn them right from the off.

With that in mind, we decided to give the latest US trend — backed by so-called ‘science’, might we add — a go and made a cup of tea before proceeding to butcher it with salt for some reason.

Here’s our review. Let’s just say it’s a short one.

Yes, believe it or not, putting SALT doesn’t make a cup of tea any better and while opinions in the office ranged from everything between “just tastes like a cup of tea” (from someone who rarely drinks tea, by the way” and “now all I can taste is the sugar” to “absolutely disgusting”.

If we were to take a general consensus from The Manc employees’ reactions, Amy probably summed it up at the end there: “Take that away from me”.

For those of you wondering what the logic is behind this whole monstrosity, Professor Michelle Francl who works in the chemistry department at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania recently claimed that putting salt in tea blocks the receptor which makes tea taste bitter, especially when it has been stewed.

Not only that, she even had this nonsense published in a book, citing old Chinese manuscripts from the 18th century in her research. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop the official US Embassy in London from issuing a statement by way of an apology and assuring they never intended to cause a diplomatic incident.

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We tried everything from the recommended pinch of salt to pretending it was sugar and putting a teaspoon in, but the only thing that stayed the same was our contempt for the end product. But we were genuinely surprised how just a bit of salt completely took away almost all of the tea flavour. Science init.

In summation, we’re going to ahead and declare salt in tea absolute heresy and anyone who says otherwise should be taken to court and stand trial for crimes against the tea-drinking world.

Sorry, Michelle, we’re sure you’re a nice lady (though you’re skating on thin ice) but you’re simply wrong. This is advice for people who don’t like tea as it seems to take away the taste of the leaves full stop, so as Dean quite rightly put it, what’s the point?

Sweeten your tea if you need to, millions of Brits do it every day and everyone likes it a certain way, but we’ll throw hands with anyone who backs putting salt in tea, American or otherwise. You can keep this horror to yourself as well.

@jchelle36 Americans making hot tea 🍵 #americanintheuk @mleemaster10 ♬ original sound – jchelle28

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Featured Image — The Manc Group/Ivan Calderon (via Unsplash)