On Sep 24, 6:51 am, " wrote:
At work, I currently have two options for hot water for my tea:

* Getting hot water directly from the side of the coffee maker. It is
difficult to tell how hot this water is, since I do not have a
thermometer. It is not boiling, so my best guess would be 160 - 175. I
have verified that this water is filtered.

* Getting cool water from our filtered tap and microwaving it.

One of these days I will invest in a kettle, but in the meantime I
have to deal with one of these two options. #1 is obviously more
convenient for me. I was wondering if #2 would be that much better. I
know microwaving water makes it taste flat... so does it not even
matter? The advantage of #2 is that I would have more control over the
temperature.

Thanks.

If you need boiling water (e.g., for black tea), then microwave it but
WATCH IT! Stop it as soon as the tiniest bubbles appear. I know a
watched pot never boils, but a watched microwave goes from "no
bubbles" to "nuclear" in a flash. Once you learn how long it takes to
heat the water in a particular cup in a particular microwave, you can
set it to that time and not have to watch it the whole time.

Alan