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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!houxe!drutx!drux3!eac
From: eac@drux3.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Cracking Tea Pots
Message-ID: <1129@drux3.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Apr-84 16:56:37 EST
Article-I.D.: drux3.1129
Posted: Mon Apr 16 16:56:37 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Apr-84 07:47:02 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 23


In reply to the article that questioned the fact that pouring hot water
into a cold china pot will cause cracks:  

It doesn't have anything to do with the tea!  Cracking will occur to
pots, cups, even metal if the temperature change is radical enough
to stress the material.  You can even hear cups cracking if you
pour boiling hot water in.  Most of the time it is only a hairline fracture
which will be stained by the tea or coffee, resulting in fine brown
lines inside your cup or pot.  If you don't believe this, start looking
in the bottom of your cups.  By the way, to keep cups from cracking,
put a spoon in the cup, then pour the boiling liquid in so that
it touches the spoon first.

                         
                         Betsy Cvetic
                         ihnp4!drux3!eac
                         303-538-3406

P.S.--to you doubting Thomases, try this experiment--drain the water
out of your car engine, let it run until it gets very hot, then pour
cold water on it.  (This case is, of course, more extreme, but the
principle is the same)