So under most brewing conditions a nonzero amount of this microbe survive, but that count is 3 orders of magnitude lower what might be termed a “therapeutic dose?”

What even is a good experimental design for probiotic tea? Brew -> agitate in hydrochloric acid & digestive enzymes for X minutes -> mix with billions of existing gut microbes (that may kill this microbe or out-compete it for resources) and incubate at body temperature -> count the number of new colonies of this particular microbe?

That was a fun read. The author has a really good storytelling style.

I dont understand why the cold brew test had fewer bacteria than the steeped teas. If the bacteria are shielded in spores, shouldnt it be expected that they have the same amount of bacteria?

This almost throwaway line from the article struck me as an example of what we can do with technology, if we choose to put our billions of dollars towards it: "I downloaded the BC30 genome".

Another organism that survives pasteurization is paratuberculosis, in milk. It is commonly found in commercial dairy herds. In my opinion, this is alarming.

Many consider it to be a candidate for the cause of Crohn’s disease. Johne’s disease, which occurs in a subset of cattle infected by paratuberculosis, bears many similarities to Crohn’s disease.

When Crohn’s disease was first described, it was believed to be an intestinal tuberculosis, though tests seemed to counter this idea; to this day, it remains difficult to test humans for paratuberculosis infections.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07400...

[1] https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(19)...

I boiled water today and survived.

Cool story with an interesting ending (to me at least).

Just a tiny nit... Should "Brewed as directed for 4 minutes in boiling water." be "Brewed as directed for 4 minutes in boiled water." Was the tea sitting in water that was boiling or placed in water that just boiled? The later is how I brew my teas.