I consider myself a lover of tea. Since I was a child, tea has been a big part of my rewards system and my friendships with others. A while back, my friend introduced me to honey citron tea, a traditional tea from Korea that, unlike many other teas, comes in a jar and looks remarkably like marmalade.
While doing homework, I left my tea unattended for an hour. When I looked down at it, I saw that the liquid became much more viscous. Of course, I immediately thought that the tea company tricked me and added corn starch or something similar to the honey because I’ve never seen something like this happen when I’ve had other teas.
Fast forward to Lab 2 on protein crystalization. In lab, we discussed how adding glycerol caused a crowding effect by being really compatible with water, creating a hydration shell around the glycerol and decreasing the overall water activity. ‘Perhaps,’ I thought to myself, ‘honey can do the same?’
As I later found out, honey is a supercooled liquid that is mostly composed of glucose and fructose. Considering the large number of -OH groups on these two sugars, it would make sense if they would to draw the waters to them and create this hydration shell as the temperature of my tea decreased, ultimately leading to my thickened tea.