Professor Michelle Francl, has documented her research in her new book Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

At Teabury we know we can make a good cup of tea. The science behind salt and tea intrigued us so we gave it a try.

1. We steeped Teabury Organic North English Breakfast tea, loose leaf in hot water for 6-8mins. A longer time period than we normally would have used. We wanted the bitterness of the tea to come through using the longer steep time.
2. We added a little milk.
3. We then poured half the tea in to a separate cup.
4. We added a tiny pinch of salt to one of the cups with tea.
5. We then tasted both teas, one with salt and one without.

Upon tasting both teas we found the cup of tea with salt, a very slight hint of it being less bitter than the cup of tea without salt. The taste of the tea was altered a little bit when adding salt, however near to it being unnoticed. Did it make it a better tasting tea by adding salt?

Not over steeping tea in the first place, using loose leaf, adding minimal to none additional flavours is often the best way to have a good and proper cup of tea. We may not be suggesting adding salt to your tea any time soon, but we enjoyed doing the test, love talking about tea, as well as drinking tea.

Microwaving tea was also mentioned in the debate, which we are definitely not a fan of!