[OldMan (OP)]

First question is it oxidants or oxidents?

Say your having a cup of black tea, if you put milk in does this reduce the benefits or amount of anit-oxidents you are getting? Does it say bond with the milk or something like that?

Don't know if this is just my mind playing tricks on me but if you don't have milk in tea or have green tea you tend to get a white residue in the mug sometimes, particularly with green tea, and it seems to dry quite a bit faster than it would with say coffee or with milk in the tea. Does this have anything to do with anti-oxidents? Or is it something else like me going batty?

Cheers
Tim

[qpan]

I'm pretty sure is antioxidants (antioxidents doesn't look quite right).
Antioxidants have the effect of neutralising free radicals. I don't know the exact mechanism, but i'd hazard a guess to say that antioxidants are compounds which can remain stable even after losing an atom, thus breaking the chain of free radical creation by annihilating a free radical. Due to antioxidants being already pretty stable, it would be unlikely that it would react with milk (which is predominantly water and dissolved lipids - or in other words fat).

The white residue may just be precipitated salts from impurities in the water - as water decreases in temperature, the amount of dissolved salts it can hold decreases, and the salt crystallises onto the side of your cup.

"I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it."
-Edgar Allan Poe

[DrN]

although I have heard that to get the benefits from black tea you shouldn't put milk in. old wives tale? or maybe there is some truth in it somewhere?