These thoughts offered not in contention but to share perspective on
both content and process with those of healthy and unfirm convictions.

HobbesOxon wrote:
> I must confess
> that I hadn't considered the other components of the equation, taking
> "oxygen content" as a common shorthand.

There's been a lot of discussion and even a successful book recently on
the topic of BS as a social phenomenon. Harry G. Frankfurt asserts that
BS is much more damaging to society than outright lying. The liar, it is
pointed out, needs a deep regard for and understanding of truth in order
to craft his deceptions. The BSer simply doesn't care, hence diluting
the underlying value of truth to the whole culture.

A lot of tea mythology is useful, whether or not correct. A lot is fun
to have and to share, whether or not correct. Some of it actually
interferes with most people's ability to enjoy tea to the fullest.
Injunctions that include words like must - always - never and other
universal quantifiers are rarely defensible in practice, beyond
deliberately stylized ritual. Aside from significant inconsistency
between and even within some rule sets, the failure to allow for
personal preference and variations in all of the ingredients of tea
enjoyment make this kind of compulsive orthodoxy as much an annoyance as
a support beyond professional circles and the like.

The BS factor really comes to the fore when people start making
assertions about things like how water *must* be handled, brewing
temperature rules, and other matters of operational significance. The
whole "oxygen" thing may be true; I've just never seen supportive
evidence. Slinging jargon like that lends an unearned air (so to speak)
of technical competence, hence credibility, that serves the speaker's
ego at cost to the listener's own insight. Beyond the social costs of
such empty posturing, the displacement of real knowledge or honest
ignorance with cant and empty formalism interferes in important ways
with learning. For example, focusing on dissolved gases can distract
attention from mineral content and other factors that are not, in fact,
tightly coupled to oxygen content. One could identify a dozen other
common examples relating to tea varietals, purchasing, storage,
handling, use in combination with foods, health effects good and bad, etc.

> However, if this is the real point of the challenge-question
> ... then it is not a little specious in its wording, one must concede.

Concedo nulli, especially if the assertion is incomprehensible. The real
point of the "challenge question" was twofold: to aim critical thinking
at claims that are probably untrue and the quality of thinking and
discourse that gives rise to them; and also to elicit evidence if any
exists, or at least a higher level of inquiry on this oft-encountered
topic.

> Given that excessive boiling results in several chemical alterations
> occuring simultaneously

For "results" substitute "may, in some common circumstances, result" or
an equivalent formulation.

, no tea drinker could probably claim to be
> truly concerned about the effect of changing just one of them - because
> changing just one of them doesn't happen in the course of conventional
> brewing.

No tea drinker? And it does; that's a key point. Where I live, the
concentration of divalent carbonates in water is nil, so boiling doesn't
matter much. Extensive reboiling of water makes no difference to tea
taste that I can detect (except when chlorine or organics happen to be
running high). When I've lived in chalky parts of the UK, the effect was
dramatic. However, I'll stand by the assertion that even there, the main
effect of overboiling is to deposit more lime scale in the kettle.

> ...it sounds as if a reader, who has invested some of their time in
> understanding the physical process of water's chemical content, has
> come across people discussing "dissolved oxygen" and wants to make the
> point that it is a variable obfuscated by others. This is fair.
> However, rather than stating this fact, the reader prefers to the
> spectacle of offering his "best puerh", and saving the fact for later.

I might comment if I could parse the foregoing paragraph. Is this the
current state of Oxford English?

> ... it does seem a little tedious (and fairly ostentatious).
> ... it's dressed up in the language of pedantry, for which I cannot
> thank you.
> Keep up the good work

Thank you for the diluted approbation. It makes my otherwise dreary day.
More to the point, you might want to consider the distinction between
pedantry for the sake of social hierarchy and precision for the sake of
clarity. If you can render my OP without the technical language in less
than double its tedious length without losing meaning, I will be
grateful for the writing lesson. I tried pretty hard to offer
information at several levels, including search terms for people who
actually want to understand and even experiment with this sort of thing
and qualitative descriptions for the less scientifically inclined.

> If each of us were similarly ostentatious about our fields,
> it wouldn't be much of a fun group, would it?

Ignoring the implied value judgment on ostentation (seen any beams
lately?), it's the diversity of posting styles, content, background and
predilections that makes this place fun. Hobbes, I'd urge you to
killfile any poster whose ostentation offends, certainly including this one.

-DM