From KEITH ARMSTRONG
Feedback’s description of Ralph Lerwin’s explanation for the brown scum
that forms on tea (15 January) allows no interaction with the water employed.
However, making tea with water which has been passed through an activated
charcoal filter always (in my experience) results in a complete absence
of scum.
This is true for all the types of tea and tap water that I have used
in the last 10 years, including whether the tea contains milk and/or sugar
or not.
The protective waxes on the leaves of the tea plants may well play a
necessary part in the formation of tea scum (as Feedback reports) but it
cannot be sufficient: the presence of something which is common in British
tap water is also required.
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It is refreshing to be able to discuss matters of such great import
in your letters column, and I look forward to the eventual identification
of the cause of this scourge of society.
I would not be at all surprised if this did not lead to a new EC directive
on the tea-scumming properties of the domestic water supply, but surely
this is part of what civilisation is all about?
Keith Armstrong Oldham, Lancashire
