Science Questions

Why does lemon make green tea go clear?

There’s probably two reasons for this.  The first one is that the lemon is acidic and so it’s affecting the pH of your tea and it may be that it’s causing changes in the chemicals that are in your tea and making them change to a different colour.  So, like you can make indicator paper and change colour with different acids or bases and I think also, certainly down the south, we have a lot of limescale which is calcium carbonate in our water and it can make your tea cloudy.  So, if you put in an acid, it will help to dissolve the calcium carbonate in it so it makes it go clearer.

September 2009