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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can Coffee Or Tea Ever Really Go Bad?
« on: Yesterday at 08:58:55 »
Different foodstuffs rot at different rates.
Dried materials - like tea and coffee - will deteriorate more slowly, but they will still perish. Volatiles in the material will slowly be lost; also, ongoing chemical reactions between the entities they contain will change the flavour and palatability over time.
Wine, for example, continues to evolve in the bottle. The thousands of molecules in the liquid react to produce new species. This alters the character of the beverage over time. This is why some wines have a short "bottle age" while others "age well".
Medicines are similar. Some are very stable molecules that will last forever. Others are more fragile, and or mixtures that may react or decay, potentially affecting potency.
Dried materials - like tea and coffee - will deteriorate more slowly, but they will still perish. Volatiles in the material will slowly be lost; also, ongoing chemical reactions between the entities they contain will change the flavour and palatability over time.
Wine, for example, continues to evolve in the bottle. The thousands of molecules in the liquid react to produce new species. This alters the character of the beverage over time. This is why some wines have a short "bottle age" while others "age well".
Medicines are similar. Some are very stable molecules that will last forever. Others are more fragile, and or mixtures that may react or decay, potentially affecting potency.