DP’s very niche super power......

[BertrandRussell]

Do has two cups of tea a day. I usually make them. He is the only person in the family who takes sugar - a scant teaspoon. We don’t use granulated sugar for anything else so we tend to forget to buy it til we run out. When we run out, I put caster sugar in his tea and he can tell the difference! I have never believed him, insisting that he must notice we’ve run out then claim that he can tell. But this morning, I used caster sugar as a test. And he knew. How can it possibly taste different? Will any sweet tea drinkers on here do the experiment for me?

castor sugar dissolves more easily/quicker than granulated sugar, so maybe that makes the tea sweeter?

Caster sugar is finer so maybe a scant teaspoon of caster is more sugar than a scant teaspoon of granulated? Just a wild guess.

I'm not going to try this right now, oh no, that would be mad

Wow that's bizarre.

For his cuppa I would buy sugar lumps. That's what we so for the strange visitors who come and want sugar in their cuppa.

Yes I'd go with chocolateteardrops. Caster sugar is finer so denser. A teaspoonful will have more sugar in than a teaspoon of granulated. If it were me, next time I'd weigh it out and make sure there was only 5g of sugar (a standard teaspoon) and then see if he can tell.

Mine can tell if its brown sugar, but yours is a whole new level

I can tell if it's caster sugar or granulated- caster is sweeter but a different kind of sweeter if that makes sense . I can also smell if a cuppa has sugar in or not - is that a super power?

My old flatmate could sniff which tea had sugar in! I was highly sceptical, but actually I can too, so not a super power.

It certainly does taste different I can tell when DH uses caster sugar.

I'm another one who can smell which has sugar in!
All sugar is the same isn't it, but caster is ground finer. So on a volume basis, a teaspoon of caster, which is smaller granules, would "hold" more granules of sugar so presumably the tea would be sweeter?
I think!

I have found my people! 😂

I can smell which has sugar in too, I would have thought that's a regular power not a super power? It smells sugary!

A boring aside here... I could never remember which sugar was which when I was younger, and people did think it made a difference! But when I started baking and looking at recipes I noticed that American sites used to refer to 'superfine granulated' sugar instead of caster and to this day it's the only way I remember!

I am so going to weigh it! I’ll leave it a few days though to lull him in to false sense of security.

I always thought superfine was icing sugar! Every day a school day.....

He says it’s a different sort of sweet, too. And he says he would rather have brown. Which is even odder because that really is a strong taste.

I can tell too! Mind you, I actually only have a tip of a teaspoon of sugar in my tea (perhaps a quarter teaspoon). Nobody believes me that it makes any difference to the taste but it does!

I take sugar in my brews and it is so obvious when caster sugar has been used! Tastes totally different.

I take sugar in my brews and it is so obvious when caster sugar has been used! Tastes totally different.

In what way? Is it sweeter?

I also think it must be to be with the density therefore making it sweeter.

This is fascinating!

It has to be the higher weight of the sugar due to finer grains packing closer together, because otherwise it is exactly the same. But unless your scales weigh to fractions of grams, you won't be able to tell the difference with a teaspoon amount, but you could try weighing a larger volume of both types to see what the difference is.

I sometimes grind granulated sugar into caster or icing sugar if we only have granulated and am making cakes or icing. Granulated is much cheaper too.

I can smell sugar in hot drinks too, which is weird, because I don't have a great sense of smell - lots of times other people say 'what's that smell' and I can't smell anything. Is especially embarassing when I have brie style cheese that DP and others say absolutely stinks, and to me it hardly smells at all.

Well maybe your superhero should go and buy his own sugar to be sure there is some always in the Cupboard and it is the right stuff!! Have you tried him wit icing sugar or granulated sweetener yet??!!

I'm a coffee drinker not tea, coffee with muscovado sugar is so much nicer than with ordinary sugar.

When we were kids and my older brother used to order me to make him a cup of tea, I'd occasionally put vinegar or salt in it and run away.
If he'd really annoyed me, I used to drop a peg or some other random kitchen object in the bottom of the cup. I'd only have a couple of minutes to make my escape before discovery. This went on for years.
Don't know why I persisted, cos it's always end in a dead arm or a headlock.
Maybe, to test his powers, you could experiment with condiments or have a game of 'what's in the bottom of the cup?'

@Avegemitesandwich it is definitely sweeter, different kind of sweetness too, and it also messes with the texture somehow, it's hard to explain really!