So a few days ago I talked about how I was a little shocked by how bad a tea I know well has turned out because my water changed. I moved a few hours away to another city, but the local water is still quite heavy on minerals – same appearance of heavy sediments when boiling. Also, whatever mix of minerals there are here, it is making an otherwise sweet (maybe even slightly boring) aged oolong a bit bitter, on top of still kicking me with that fishy note. The local water supply authority claims their water’s total TDS is not that high – but the boiling sediments suggests otherwise. This also has to do with local piping – so hard to say with certainty what the end product is from the tap vs from the source analysis.
So I went looking for something to soften the water. Local supermarket and such, unfortunately, are not of great help. Europeans, as many of you are (or know), love their mineral water. They love their water with some taste – think of the ever lasting popularity of Evian, for example, a water that I think even when drunk alone is not that tasty. It is also a water that is over the threshold of what’s acceptable for general tea brewing – it’s too heavy and makes teas taste weird in unexpected ways (like my recent experience). And the supermarket’s stocks are basically all waters like that – many even harder than Evian. Except one – 14.4ml/L Laurentana from Italy. Minor issue – it’s carbonated.
Well, no matter, boiling it will get rid of the gas, and I don’t intend to only use it – I ended up doing an about half/half mix of it with the local tap water. Success! No more fishy smell/taste. The bitter edge is gone. The tea, more or less, is back to its normal self, slightly boring, a little sour, aged oolong taste. It’s been a somewhat instructive reminder of how much water can change your perception of your tea – instantly relegating a tea that I normally drink happily in large quantities into a category where I basically don’t want to touch it at all, just because the water changed. If you don’t like a tea that other people all seem to love, or if certain categories of teas seem to have weird/offputting tastes or smell (especially if, after you leave it around for a while, a heavy ring of deposit form at the edge of the liquid), it’s time to test out softer water. Of course, water that is too low in minerals, like RO water, can have the opposite problem. A happy balance somewhere in the middle is the best.
4 responses so far ↓
Jakub T // July 9, 2025 at 5:22 pm |
Absolutely agreed, water is central (and one of cheapest ways of improving tea experience). I think it’s a bit like room acoustics in hifi – if it’s bad, there is no point getting great speakers and amplifiers available (~no point getting fancy tea). And, predictably, many neglect room acoustics, and many neglect water. Seeing a wonderful tea to be butchered by poor (too hard or too distilled) water is pretty depressing. It’s often evident already from color – e.g. local unfiltered water makes tea gray/greenish, when it should be golden etc. It’s funny how often people like to be extreme, as you point out – either going for mineral (because unspoilt mother nature or whatever), or reverse osmosis (because some other fairytale). And neither is good.
When I did a test using bottled water, I was surprised how different characters I could get, and there was no water I’d prefer uniformly across tea types. I find that Brita-filtered tap water is usually fine (in Europe at least).
One thing I really don’t understand re water is the use of Chaozhou tea stove. I find it just makes the best water (compared to e.g. tetsubin or normal kettle). The teas are somehow rounder, sweeter. I am quite skeptical of the feeling and cannot rule out entirely it’s just that one focuses more on the tea making experience and tasting it when going through the fuss of coal, soaking, etc… but even if I try to account for that mentally, the teas really do feel more enjoyable.
Do you have any feelings re possible differences induced by different brewing vessels?
MarshalN // July 9, 2025 at 5:55 pm |
Yeah water is really something people don’t talk enough about. You sort of settle into your routine and don’t think about it very much. I remember having tea with someone who used RO water who didn’t realize how much it was muting his tea because RO water end up brewing everything super light and flat. Instead all that money was spent on the tea
I don’t have a good theory for why Chaozhou pots work. I can say the same for my tetsubin though – water coming out of it is better. I think with those vessels there’s a natural balancing that happens. On a tetsubin at least if your water is very hard it just forms a scale – and the hardness gets softened a bit. I imagine something similar happens with other kinds of vessels that are more interactive with water vs say a stainless steel kettle
fotogratea // July 10, 2025 at 3:55 am |
With all the water talk on discord (etc. ) recently, I have set out to explore more myself. It seems like you’re in Europe currently, and I think you mentioned elsewhere that you’ll be in Germany. If you can find it (usually at “Rewe” and maybe “Edeka”) I’d suggest trying the water “Black Forest”. Really hard to find as it’s often sold out but worth the chase. There are also some interesting waters available at the Bio Markets like “Denns” and “Alnatura” but some people even use the Lidl in house brand “Saskia”. If you get to try any German supermarket water, I’d be very interested to learn your opinion on it.
Janek // August 6, 2025 at 6:25 am |
I agree with Jakub about Brita-filtered tap water, I´ve tried many bottled variants and none was as good as my local filtered.
If you must rely on bottled water, what about some baby-water? At least here in Czech rep. they can be found several brands in every supermarket and usually are less mineralized.
Best regards
Janek