Is foam in tea brewing "bro science"?

[KIS]

I have only ever asked you about your methods, not someone else's. Red herring much?

It's not my job to convince a random stranger on the internet who read an article of anything. I gave you some direction as to where you could look for more information. I shared my own experience using a direct microscopy with my phase contrast microscope. You can take it or leave I guess. What I wanted to address is the fact that much of what you shared was not the full truth and the authors do not fully understand what they are talking about.

 

[KIS]

Without a number obtained though some legitimate means, you have no objective base to compare to. Saying something is exponentially greater than an unknown number is nonsense.

MPN is a very commonly used mathematical tool. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topic...d-pharmaceutical-science/most-probable-number

But seriously, you would have to be blind to not be able to see the difference visually. If you want to stay ignorant or obtuse that is your choice. It's silly really. If you don't want to try the technology, then don't. No one is twisting your arm here.

 

[KIS]

And how are you comparing dirt to liquid? How are your dirt samples prepared to make them equivalent to your tea samples in terms of non living particulate matter?

The fact you call it "dirt" just shows your level of knowledge on the subject...

 

[KIS]

@Orion I'm done with this discussion. Feel free to write whatever you want at this point, I don't care to spend my time arguing with you any further. Folks can draw their own conclusions or do their own research on the subject.

 

[BII]

Regarding biomass, this can refer literally to the mass/total amount of biological material (grams, tons, etc. or observed visually in terms of volume of material, as here with a microscope); and at any scale, from microbial to whole ecosystems. In many respects, we rather constantly judge our plant leaf and bud biomass.

I think a proper microscope can easily provide a good idea of more or less biomass of the organisms it is optimized to 'see.' So it can provide good, usable data based on observation. But this simple microscope viewing is not quantitative. And keep in mind, any single microscope type/technology misses a lot.

 

[Orion]

MPN is a very commonly used mathematical tool. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topic...d-pharmaceutical-science/most-probable-number

But seriously, you would have to be blind to not be able to see the difference visually. If you want to stay ignorant or obtuse that is your choice. It's silly really. If you don't want to try the technology, then don't. No one is twisting your arm here.

Are you saying now that you used mpn to arrive at your conclusion? As far as I can tell, you never indicated that it is what you used, only that it could be used.

What technology are you referring to?

How many samples did you observe before arriving at your conclusion? Are you sure your solution was homogenous?

The fact you call it "dirt" just shows your level of knowledge on the subject...

Semantics in order to sidestep my question.
If you've done nothing to the 'soil' then comparing a soil sample to a tea sample is apples and oranges. They are two completely different environments. One is an aqueous aerated solution. Three other being soil. Let's say you do have a higher population of microbes in the tea. Do you know what they are? Do you know what they do? Do you know how viable they are outside of your solution?

 

[Orion]

Regarding biomass, this can refer literally to the mass/total amount of biological material (grams, tons, etc. or observed visually in terms of volume of material, as here with a microscope); and at any scale, from microbial to whole ecosystems. In many respects, we rather constantly judge our plant leaf and bud biomass.

I think a proper microscope can easily provide a good idea of more or less biomass of the organisms it is optimized to 'see.' So it can provide good, usable data based on observation. But this simple microscope viewing is not quantitative. And keep in mind, any single microscope type/technology misses a lot.

Interesting, you are saying the term biomass, in this instance, refers to the organic inputs as well as the microbes? If that's the case would not biomass also refer to dead microbes?

 

[Orion]

What I wanted to address is the fact that much of what you shared was not the full truth and the authors do not fully understand what they are talking about.

Linda has a PhD in horticulture. You're a salesman with a microscope. The point of sharing that article is that tea represents an unknown and that the people who push it are usually selling it.

 

[BII]

Interesting, you are saying the term biomass, in this instance, refers to the organic inputs as well as the microbes? If that's the case would not biomass also refer to dead microbes?

As a popular term thrown around by many, it's definition can vary. So if getting technical, really need to state how you're using it, or make it clear in context.

Biomass usually refers to the total amount (ideally mass/dry weight) of biological-source material (live organisms and resulting organic material), so yes, dead cells and derived organic matter would be included. With microscopic examination, this is what you are seeing -- all visible microbes/cells and debris whether dead or alive. Counting or isolating just live ones from a sample, etc. is generally not as simple as direct visual examination. But for many users/purposes, estimating/comparing visible volume, such as from microscopic examination or filtering and comparing volumes of culture-derived solids is good enough.

But I've also seen the term often used in the context of biotech culturing microbes to refer the total amount of living cells/tissues/organisms, such as a sample taken from a microbial culture medium (here soil) with live microbes of interest assayed/counted to determine total live no. of microbes/cells (and from this derive titer, the concentration, no. of lives per volume, e.g., mL or Liter). For example, in the biotech industry, total biomass can be the calculated total no. of cells -- the culture media titer (concentration; microbes/L) x bioreactor size/volume (L).