How to prepare tasty tea on induction cooktop?

Question

I used to preapre tea on gas stove. For two, my measurements were, 2.5 tea spoon of Tata tea, 1 glass water, 5 spoons of sugar. The measurements arent that important as they are in relation to spoons I have. I used to keep it on gas for 8 min with least flame and it used to turn yummy. I came with this formula over long time of experimentation.Recently, I bought Prestige PIC 16.0 plus Induction Cooktop and since then for a week I am not able to prepare tea well. First of all, even on least temprature within couple of minutes the tea boils down quickly and starts spilling. So I guess tea and sugar doesnt get enough time to mix well and tea turns not so tasty. I am not able to figure it out how can I prepare tasty tea on this induction cooktop as I am alredy operating at least temprature, that is 65 degrees Celcius.

1. This is 1900 W cooktop. I am guessing if 1200 W cooktop would have given lower temprature. Is it so? Should I return this cooktop and try some other?
2. You can view control panel of this cook top here. So it has eight modes: pressure cooker, curry, dosa/chapati, idly, deep fry, heat milk, keep warm and saute. I guess each option is nothing much but different combination of temperature and timer. I usually put it on saute and reduce temperature to 65 degrees. Still it never worked. I also tried pausing heating for some minutes and starting it again while continuously stirring it. It improved but still not satisfactory.
3. I also observed induction heat comes waves. It boils tea for some seconds, then stops for some seconds and then again boils and then stops again. Is it normal? Is it the reason for not so great tea?
4. I am now doubtful if I can prepare good food on induction cooktop similar to gas stove. For example, my chapatis on gas stove looks like this. Now I am wondering whether I will able to prepare same on induction cooktop as it gets hot quickly. Is it possible?

Answer 1

From what you are saying, my working hypothesis is that you are overheating your tea.

My first suggestion would be to forget all the modes of your cooktop (Pressure cook, etc.) and also the "degrees" scale. I have always found that a degree scale on an induction cooktop does more harm than good, since it has little relation to the actual temperature of your food. It is very obvious in your case: when a mixture of milk and water boils, it is at 100C, not at 65C.

So what you should do is to manually select the 120 W setting and try cooking with it. If it also requires you to select some mode from the lower row, then my guess would be that saute is indeed a good choice.

If using the lowest setting (the 120 W) doesn't work, there are two and a half other ways to make it cook slower. One is to make a larger amount of tea at once. The other is to place the pan farther away from the coil. A thin wooden chopping board might be enough for a test, but it might char with prolonged use, so if you are happy with that solution, you could try a pizza stone or a bathroom tile for permanent use. Don't use anything that can melt or catch fire, or anything that's made of metal. It is still best to combine that with using the 120 W setting - if you were to use something thick and a higher setting, you would be wasting energy.

The "half" way is to move the cooking vessel such that its bottom is only partially on the stove. It might not work at all, if the sensor notices that parts of the coil are uncovered, and if it works, it is inefficient and makes for badly cooked food. For me, it isn't worth doing it, but I am listing it here for completeness.

The observation that the heat comes in waves is perfectly normal, that's how induction stoves work (the technical term is "time modulation"). Without that, they would be much, much hotter (all the heat all the time) and the food would burn instantly.