Why is our sugar damp in our kitchen?
Every morning our sugar is damp when we come to make coffee and tea. The sugar is kept in a procelain jar with a cork lid. Ground Coffee is kept in a similar jar but appears not to be damp each morning. Tea bags are kept in a another procelain jar but with a procelain lid, with no effects of damp.Kettles are boiled in the kitchen perahaps 30 times a day which could explain the dampness of the sugar but why not the cofee and tea?
Sugar will absorb water from the air much more easily than tea or coffee, which is why the effect is more noticible. Sugar was often used as a drying agent - a lump of sugar placed in a container with a piece of cheese will slowly absorb any excess water in the air, and prevent mould growing on the cheese.
From personal experience I find that leaving the sugar uncovered prevents it going damp. In our kitchen we have a jar of sugar and a sugar bowl. If you are opening the sugar jar after every time you boil a kettle, then the steam filled atmosphere will be trapped in the jar dampening the sugar. The uncovered sugar bowl will be exposed to the same (or more) steam, but for a shorter amount of time - leaving the sugar uncovered allows the steam to disperse.
As the sugar jar isn't being continually re-opened the sugar in the jar will only absorb one session of steam every week or so and remain drier.
That's my theory, anyway - and it seems to work for us!
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