Can Basic Kitchen Tools Remove Sweeteners from a Tea Mix?

[Bacle2]

Hi, All:

I bought a liquid mix of teas, which turned out to be way too sweet for my taste.

I was hoping to be able to somehow isolate the sweeteners (mostly cane sugar; there is

also honey, but the honey is blended-in with the mix) from the rest of the mix, by using

basic ingredients

and materials; more specifically, all I really have available is a basic electric kitchen ,

oven and microwave, and the materials available are just those one can find in a

supermarket. I was hoping , if possible, for something as simple as the processe

s of de-salting of water which I have seen in some science shows on TV , consisting of

boiling and evaporation/condensation, and plastic bags used to condense the steam

from the water. Still, I don't know enough chemistry to understand the

main properties of cane sugar to come-up with a useful process myself.

Any Suggestions, Please?

 

[chemisttree]

Make the tea according to directions and blend in some yeast. Let it sit loosely covered for 4 or 5 days. Voila! Long Island tea with a mead kicker.

Enjoy your B vitamins!

 

[NascentOxygen]

Hi Bacle2. You could try the trick that cooks use after oversalting the soup. I *think* the technique is to drop in a peeled raw potato and it absorbs salt by osmosis. It might work for sugar; let stand in the fridge for some time.

If you don't fancy spuds, try raw apple.

You could readily halve the percentage sugar by buying an equal amount of unsweetened tea and mixing the two.

If all else fails, make ice blocks out of your tea. The cold dulls your taste buds and the teas won't taste nearly as sweet. It's this physiology that compels the manufacturers of soda drinks and ice-cream to add so much sugar to their products--the cold dulls our taste buds.

 

[Bacle2]

Unfortunately the company does not have the lower-sugar version. I suspect the subsidies to some farmers (corn, etc., from which sweeteners can be made) growers led to these sweeteners (corn syrup, high fructose, etc.) becoming cheaper, so that food manufacturers decided to use them as ingredients in just-about every thing. Try finding even bread without some form of sugar in it. Even vitamin waters have sugar on them now--and around 20% of teenagers have diabetes.

Sorry for the rant. Thanks , both, I'll give it a shot.

 

[Borek]

Try finding even bread without some form of sugar in it.

Taking into account fact that bread is made from flour and flour always contains starch, which is a sugar, that can be indeed impossible.

 

[Bacle2]

Yes, right; I meant bread without sugar added to it, i.e., sugar other than the naturally-occurring starch . There is fructose, corn syrup, etc. besides the natural starch in the list
of ingredients. Check it out if you don't believe me.

Maybe more precisely, I should have said, "try finding bread without some form of sugar other than the starch in it added to the bread by the manufacturer".

 

[Borek]

I can speak only for Poland - no problems here. But it doesn't mean it is not a problem in US.

However, I seem to remember sugars can be added for technological reasons - to speed up the maturing (if that's the correct word) of the dough. Presence of simple sugars speeds up fermentation, shortening the production cycle, so these sugars are not necessarily present in the final product. But I am not a baker nor food chemist, so I can be wrong.

 

[Bacle2]

Much less do I know about chemistry than you, surely. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but that is the story as I read it.

 

[NascentOxygen]

Unfortunately the company does not have the lower-sugar version.

Buy a different brand, or make your own from the dry ingredients, or something!

Try finding even bread without some form of sugar in it.

But it's often only a miniscule amount. Half a tspn per loaf ∼ 10 grains per slice. It's added to boost the yeast growth, so you get lighter bread (i.e., less flour, less carbs—more air) per slice. Half has probably turned to alcohol and CO2 by the time it gets cooked, anyway. If you bake your own bread you'll soon find that the home baker needs to add a few tspns of sugar to get a light loaf using ordinary supermarket kitchen flour. I guess the home baker could add fructose, glucose, or honey instead, if you have a set against cane sugar. Don't forget that the flour is already turning into glucose by the time it's been masticated and is sliding down your gullet!