What sort of fungus/mold grows on warmed up iced tea?

Tea needs to be refrigerated. Also, a pinch of baking soda in the hot tea will help keep it clear. There is one mold concoction that forms on tea that is touted for its helath benefits. it is called kombucha.

Back in the early 80’s there was a huge trend of Sun Tea. People would put tea bags in a jar of water and let it steep in the sun.
A lot of people got really sick from it. I don’t remember all the details but it had something to do with fecal matter on the leaves and not boiling the tea let the bacteria grow like crazy.
I’ve been Leary of tea I didn’t make myself every since.

@Judi I’ve been making sun tea since I was a little kid. Can’t say I’ve ever had any issues with it.
A couple days ago I picked half a pint of blue berries, a hand full of black berries and two hand fulls of chocolate mint and put them in a gallon container with a half cup of sugar. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good.

Granted that case it was all stuff from my garden so no foreign bacteria as far as I know but I generally use tea bags

Ickk… it could have been something that was airborne, and just happened to land on/in your tea. If it was sweetened tea, then there was plenty of food for microscopic beasties.

If the tea was sweetened with sugar, then it’s anybody’s guess what formed on it. There are a wide range of molds and fungi that love sugar just as much as we humans do. Tea leaves are susceptible to mold and yeast spores, but commercial tea is grown with fungicides to prevent its buildup, and it is processed to remove what might remain. Organic teas are not, and are much more susceptible to molding, even within the tea bag.

Also, the water you use to brew tea, unless boiled, can add spores. And they are floating around in the air, so in two days it’s no surprise they take up in the nice moist environment provided by the open tea container.

I’ve had this happen too. Thing was, I drank a glass before I noticed the fungal growth.

Barf.

But I was only psychologically off-put. No other physical effects.

@Blueroses Most of those fungi are actually good for you. But not all, so if you do notice some growing and do not have the equipment and expertise for a spore sample, they’re best avoided. Ergot mold on grains, for instance, can cause a rather long bout of very compelling hallucinations. It is suspected that ergot in the grainary led to the paranoia that sparked the Salem Witch Trials.

Yes @ETpro, well… if I had noticed it, I would have tossed it rather than taking a chance on “some fungi are good”.

If it had a chance of being ergot, I’d have sold it on the street corner.

@Blueroses There you go. Don’t do up some ergot for a high, though. It’s effects can fade in and out for long periods of time and unlike the typical LSD trip, I hear the hallucinations can be utterly compelling. It’s a cheap ticket to temporary schizophrenia. But it only grows on grain that gets damp while in storage, so tea is pretty safe.

@ETpro thanks for the growing tip. ;)

@Blueroses Ha! If you survive, post your experience on Erowid. I’m a member.

Today I made mint , lime, and apricot sun tea. Amazing.

@ETpro Erowid should replace the D.A.R.E. program in schools. It’s actually unbiased truth.

@uberbatman Amen to good sun tea and to the value of Erowid.