Would this even work? Lol
- Use a metal straw to improve heat conduction.
- Increase the surface area and time for heat extraction to occur with extra loops in the water part (do they make metal silly straws?)
- Get really fancy and use a counterflow chiller: create a two layer straw, where tea goes through one layer while cold water goes through the other layer in the opposite direction (obviously with an outlet somewhere besides your teacup)
- Use a metal straw to improve heat conduction.
While metal is a better conductor of heat, when looking at the effective rate of cooling you need to take the wall thickness into account. I think a plastic straw with it’s micrometer thin walls is unbeatable.
Edit: I have trouble finding information on wall thickness of drinking straws, it one source says they are 130-250 μm thick. That is thicker than I expected.
Counterpoint: drink a cold drink through a plastic straw and a metal straw, with your fingers on the straw. See which one feels cooler.
There are two compounding factors
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heat capacity: any short term experiment will measure heat capacity first, conduction second
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locality of contact: contact along the whole length of the straw eliminates heat conduction along the length of the straw. A single point of contact (holding the straw with fingers instead of the whole hand) behaves differently.
I thought plastic straws were thinner than 0.2 mm, so maybe the metal is actually better.
It’s fun arguing about these technicalities though!
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