Would this even work? Lol
- Use a metal straw to improve heat conduction.
- Increase the surface area and time for heat extraction to occur with extra loops in the water part (do they make metal silly straws?)
- Get really fancy and use a counterflow chiller: create a two layer straw, where tea goes through one layer while cold water goes through the other layer in the opposite direction (obviously with an outlet somewhere besides your teacup)
- Use a metal straw to improve heat conduction.
While metal is a better conductor of heat, when looking at the effective rate of cooling you need to take the wall thickness into account. I think a plastic straw with it’s micrometer thin walls is unbeatable.
Edit: I have trouble finding information on wall thickness of drinking straws, it one source says they are 130-250 μm thick. That is thicker than I expected.
Counterpoint: drink a cold drink through a plastic straw and a metal straw, with your fingers on the straw. See which one feels cooler.
There are two compounding factors
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heat capacity: any short term experiment will measure heat capacity first, conduction second
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locality of contact: contact along the whole length of the straw eliminates heat conduction along the length of the straw. A single point of contact (holding the straw with fingers instead of the whole hand) behaves differently.
I thought plastic straws were thinner than 0.2 mm, so maybe the metal is actually better.
It’s fun arguing about these technicalities though!
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Leave a block of wood and a brick of steel in a freezer for 24 hours and see which one feels cooler - they’ll be the same actual temperature (at least negligibly close the longer they’re left) but the metal will feel immensely cooler to the touch due to its higher capacity for heat transference.
Doesn’t that just agree with what I’m saying? The metal is going to transfer heat more easily than the plastic
Y’all trying to come up with ways to cool it while I’m using my 5 temperature setting electric kettle to get the water hot enough to steep tea, but not boil.
But can you play snake on your kettle
I bought a kettle with a temperature selector. I have one degree of precision. Which is often overkill. It’s surprisingly useful to be able to heat water at non scalding temps. Especially for cleaning tasks, actually.
Also good for not ruining (even cheap) tea.
Matcha 70C, green 80, I do my coffee at 85C.
That sounds luxurious. Do you love it?
My parents have a kettle that’ll let you set the desired water temperature to extract degree. I don’t think they realise some teas need something other than boiling water, but hey it’s nifty to see those things around. Definitely beats making tea with a thermometer or calculating the cold/hot water mix to get the temperature right.
Very low surface area heat exchanger you’ve got there! Gotta do several more loops under the water to get efficient heat transfer.
Hear me out, what if we added racing stripes to the straw?
Some LEDs on the bowl would probably be more efficient.
its also very low volume so i think it will be fine for the job
Yeah, at slow enough drinking speeds there would likely be some noticeable difference in temperature after passing through the radiator, it probably just won’t be massive.
Well that’s why they invented crazy straws after all!
Just get one of those handy cupholders that come free with lots of electronics:
They also work for quick thawing.
Just mix them together.
Hmmm microplastics soup
Motherfucker never heard of ice cubes
Ice cubes can water down your drink. Use a large, frozen, steel ball bearing so you can instead get some nice heavy metal poisoning to accompany it.
(Don’t actually do this)
I love plastic straw in hot tea!
