It looks like an ice spike to me. Perhaps whatever it is made of dried from the outside inwards, forming a tacky film first. As the film contracted through evaporation it forced the wetter innards up through a weak point in the film, gradually forming a spike.
Did someone have lemon tea? Is the spike made of sugar and pectin?
Hrm, reading about ice spikes I think: there was a flat patch of this gooey stuff stuck to the bottom of the mug. When the tea was poured, an ice-spike-like mechanism produced the tea spike.
Pressure would come from the increase in volume of subsurface goo as it heats up (or perhaps trapped air). I conjecture that the goo has a tendency to set when exposed to hot water: so a film of set goo forms over the top, and still-liquid goo which escapes out of a small hole would make a spike as it is congealed by the hot tea. Eventually the whole thing would set.
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Date: 2011-05-23 10:22 pm (UTC)Did someone have lemon tea? Is the spike made of sugar and pectin?
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Date: 2011-05-24 07:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-24 11:51 am (UTC)Pressure would come from the increase in volume of subsurface goo as it heats up (or perhaps trapped air). I conjecture that the goo has a tendency to set when exposed to hot water: so a film of set goo forms over the top, and still-liquid goo which escapes out of a small hole would make a spike as it is congealed by the hot tea. Eventually the whole thing would set.