05 January 2012

Teh tarik

A Malaysian beverage (literally "pulled tea.")
The mixture is poured back and forth repeatedly between two vessels from a height, giving it a thick frothy top. This process cools the process fluid (tea) to optimal drinking temperatures, and helps to thoroughly mix the tea with the condensed milk
The video shows how it's done. Whoa.

1 comment:

  1. This kind of thing always amazes me. There are some very complicated kinetics and fluid dynamics equations needed to work out how to do this.

    Factors include : rate of rotation, height and distance of each pitcher from the axis of rotation, rate of flow, wind speed, etc.

    That the human mind can, with some practice, intuitively solve these equations and then use its proprioception to place everything in the right place at the right time is amazing.

    I am reminded of a quote from the late great Douglas Adams:

    "We know, however, that the mind is capable of understanding these matters in all their complexity and in all their simplicity. A ball flying through the air is responding to the force and direction with which it was thrown, the action of gravity, the friction of the air which it must expend its energy on overcoming, the turbulence of the air around its surface, and the rate and direction of the ball's spin.

    And yet, someone who might have difficulty consciously trying to work out what 3 x 4 x 5 comes to would have no trouble in doing differential calculus and a whole host of related calculations so astoundingly fast that they can actually catch a flying ball.

    People who call this 'instinct' are merely giving the phenomenon a name, not explaining anything."

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