The Best of Tea

Albert Einstein was not only a brilliant thinker with piercingly keen observational skills, he was also a tea drinker. It should not be surprising to know then that he turned these unique perceptional and analytical skills to his beloved cup.

He was taken with explaining why the tea leaves in his cup would accumulate in the bottom-center. Common sense would suggest that the centrifugal forces created by the swirling water would push the leaves outward toward the cup’s edge, but this didn’t happen; why he wondered.

His eventual conclusion to this ‘tea leaf paradox’ actually became a published paper in 1926. It seems that the friction of the water against the sides of the cup causes a current which pushes the leaves toward the center.

Einstein’s paper on the subject was recently the inspiration for a scientist from Notre Dame University, Leslie Yeo, to undertake the creation of a device that can examine blood work in a doctor’s office.

Currently, to examine a patient’s blood, a large vial must be drawn from the patient’s arm and sent to a lab to be separated into plasma and blood cells using a large centerfuge. Yeo’s new device would allow instant testing with just a drop of blood. That’s great news if for anyone who needs regular blood testing and for children.

So, drink up, and know that not only is tea good for your health, it’s actually improving your health care.