Say I make two cups of tea, with a moderate amount of honey. Same amount of each both times, same type of mug. Mug 1, I stir the honey in, thoroughly, immediately after pouring the hot water over the tea bag. Mug 2, I give the honey a cursory stir or three. I am assuming that after a couple of minutes the tea at the bottom of mug 2 is sweeter than the tea at the top. But THEN I stir mug 2 thoroughly.
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Do both mugs reach sweetness equilibrium? Do they taste the same? If not, why not?
In: 2
If you stir one, wait an hour, then stir the other, you will have mixed them in the same manner. If anything, the second mug will have naturally diffused some of the sugars while it sat and would have naturally mixed a bit before you aided with stirring.
Stirring just speeds the process of diffusion and dissolution by breaking apart the added item and exposing things like greater surface area and friction to the mix. Without the stirring, it settles and must be left to the slow movement if particles to diffuse.
It doesn’t matter when these items are stirred, so long as they are stirred in about the same way for about the same amount of time in the end, both should be as homogenous as each other.
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