Would this even work? Lol
- Use a metal straw to improve heat conduction.
- Increase the surface area and time for heat extraction to occur with extra loops in the water part (do they make metal silly straws?)
- Get really fancy and use a counterflow chiller: create a two layer straw, where tea goes through one layer while cold water goes through the other layer in the opposite direction (obviously with an outlet somewhere besides your teacup)
- Use a metal straw to improve heat conduction.
While metal is a better conductor of heat, when looking at the effective rate of cooling you need to take the wall thickness into account. I think a plastic straw with it’s micrometer thin walls is unbeatable.
Edit: I have trouble finding information on wall thickness of drinking straws, it one source says they are 130-250 μm thick. That is thicker than I expected.
Counterpoint: drink a cold drink through a plastic straw and a metal straw, with your fingers on the straw. See which one feels cooler.
Leave a block of wood and a brick of steel in a freezer for 24 hours and see which one feels cooler - they’ll be the same actual temperature (at least negligibly close the longer they’re left) but the metal will feel immensely cooler to the touch due to its higher capacity for heat transference.
Doesn’t that just agree with what I’m saying? The metal is going to transfer heat more easily than the plastic
There are two compounding factors
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heat capacity: any short term experiment will measure heat capacity first, conduction second
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locality of contact: contact along the whole length of the straw eliminates heat conduction along the length of the straw. A single point of contact (holding the straw with fingers instead of the whole hand) behaves differently.
I thought plastic straws were thinner than 0.2 mm, so maybe the metal is actually better.
It’s fun arguing about these technicalities though!
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Just get one of those handy cupholders that come free with lots of electronics:
They also work for quick thawing.
Hmmm microplastics soup
Motherfucker never heard of ice cubes
Ice cubes can water down your drink. Use a large, frozen, steel ball bearing so you can instead get some nice heavy metal poisoning to accompany it.
(Don’t actually do this)
They’re not a monster
I love plastic straw in hot tea!
Wouldn’t the plastic straw melt in the hot tea? Maybe need metal or silicone straw adapter hooked onto plastic straw in heat exchanger 🤔
Yeah, I won’t drink anything hot out of plastic anymore: Corpos lied to us for decades that it was safe but it wasn’t and now we’re full of all sorts of terrible shit. The straw probably wouldn’t deform, but it probably would leech all sorts of chemicals into the water.
It’s plastic not wax
Oh dear this had me I stitches. Can’t explain it. It tickled me just right.
Just go full metal. Better heat transfer.
MacGyver at Wish
MacGyver gets bored when he doesn’t have something important to do.
but am patient
Assuming the water is cooled, yes, this would decrease the temperature of the tea. Probably not by a ton, but it would make a difference.
It just has to be colder than the tea, not necessarily “cooled”. As the tea passes through it, some heat will dissipate to the water.
