Some anomalies/questions which are not necessarily important, but do puzzle me or where I find existing explanations to be unsatisfying.
Why does microwaved tea taste bad? I discovered this in college, and tea-drinkers agree: heating water in a microwave somehow makes tea taste worse.
There is no obvious chemical difference between H20 heated on an electric heating coil in a tea kettle and one heated by microwaves, so how is this possible?
I suggest that it is not a chemical difference so much as a physical difference, like texture, which can affect taste a lot. Specifically, normal tea has lots of boiling bubbles from uneven heating inside metal or ceramic containers, while microwave heating of glass containers produces (dangerously superheated) even heating and no bubbles or boiling.
If so, then the bad taste of microwave tea may be fixable by adding rough surfaces or injecting air or active stirring.