Late Extract Method & Maximising Hops

[Hairy]

I am quite sure many of you guys have heard abt the late extract method. Simply put, it is achieved by boiling diluted wort with hops and add in the large chuck of extracts towards the end of the boil. The reason is tt doing do would avoid boiling concentrated wort which sacrifices hop utilization.

http://www.byo.com/stories/article/indi ... f-the-boil

Now, according to the link above, wort gravity is not the only factor tt affects hop utilisation. I am interested particularly to the way pH affects it. When we make hop tea, we usually do not bother to check the water pH but wort is acidic in nature and this apparently helps in hop utilisation. Now, tt brings me to the next point. We tend to think that hop tea is one of the best way to maximise the use of hops. But is it really?