Stopping a teapot from dribbling?

It took a lot of research but a team of fluid dynamics experts at the University of Lyons in France have worked out why a teapot dribbles (a phenomenon known as the "hydro-capillary effect").

Better still they also have the solution! And the answer is to deploy a "superhydrophobic" material (such as butter) down the spout.

According to the Telegraph they worked out that that at low pouring speeds tea starts to stick to the inside of the spout, causing the flow to momentarily stop and then start again. However, by reducing the friction between the spout and the fluid, the dribble can be all but be eradicated.

They recommend using the thinnest material possible for the lip of the spout, preferably metal, and applying an "hydrophobic" or water repelling substance to the inside. This will mean the tea literally glides off the surface and into your cup.
The findings demonstrated in the paper "Beating the teapot effect" were published in arXiv, the online science journal.

So there you have it (yet again). Butter? So that’s why Tibetans have their tea with Yak butter?

Meditations on tea supplies in the post nuclear world

A nuclear attack on the UK in the 1950s (as it would have done at any time) would have left millions dead or horribly mutilated. Disease, starvation and lawlessness would have been rife. Of major concern, however, was the supply of tea. Recently released documents show that Government officials planning food supplies were concerned that the tea situation would be "very serious" after a nuclear war. "It would be wrong to consider that even 1oz per head per week could be ensured," they stated.

The documents said a nuclear conflict would result in the loss of three-quarters of tea stocks.

On a more serious (but unsurprising) note one paper from April 1955 said: "The advent of thermonuclear weapons... has presented us with a new and much more difficult set of food defence problems." The aim was to be "completely ready to maintain supplies of food to the people of these islands, sufficient in volume to keep them in good heart and health from the onset of a thermonuclear attack on this country". "It has become increasingly clear that the severity of the attack which the enemy could launch would produce a catastrophe in the face of which past measures would be fatally deficient," the document added.

Or to put it more sincerely and crudely “If the Bomb drops, we’re screwed......”