Michelle Francl, a Bryn Mawr College chemistry professor, shares the science behind making the perfect cup of tea in her new book, writes Nate File for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea” will be released on January 24. In it, Michelle Francl puts the science in easy layman’s terms for tea lovers who don’t hold a doctorate in chemistry.

“It is pretty amazing how many different teas you can get from a single plant,” Francl said in an interview.

The impetus behind the research for the book was a tweet by another chemist who asked if a tetrahedral tea bag makes a better cup of tea than a regular tea bag.

It led her to see if chemists really knew a lot about making tea. It turns out they do. Just ask why you should never make your tea in the microwave.

“It was really fun to think about how to write about tea from a chemist’s perspective, for people who are not chemists. There’s a little bit of chemistry lessons interspersed in it. I tried it out with my sister, who never took a chemistry class and was not exactly a chemistry fans, and she said her eyes didn’t glaze over.”

Read more about Michelle Francl and the chemistry behind making a cup of tea in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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