If you’re a habitual tea drinker, you may notice that certain cups sometimes taste better than others. Yet, if you’re using the same leaves, why wouldn’t your tea always taste the same?
Well, there’s likely something in the water. When making tea, the details make the difference. Research has found that time, temperature, brewing vessel, water-to-leaf ratio, AND the quality of water can impact the way your tea tastes.
In this blog, we’ll explore water quality. Should you use tap water for tea, or is it impacting the quality of your tea-drinking experience? Let’s take a look.
What Are The Three Water Options For Tea Making?
As noted above, not all water is created equally. When you go to fill your tea kettle, you have a few options as to what you fill it with. You may fill it from a tap, or you could pour water from a bottle. Here are the primary three options that could make the difference and why its impactful.
Well Water
If you have well water available, it can be a good option for tea making. However, you have to make sure that you check the pH of the water. If the pH is above 7 (which well water often is), then you’ll want to filter it before brewing because extra minerals can contribute unwanted flavors. Any pH above 8.5 is hard water, and it will brew a bitter tea.
Bottled Water
Bottled water is one of the optimal choices for making tea. Quality spring water is often what is bottled, and it has a neutral pH (about 7) and flavor, so you know your tea will turn out well. The only downside is that using bottled water does impact the environment, so if you’re able to use filtered tap water instead, that’s generally more environmentally friendly.
Tap Water
After fresh mountain stream water and high-quality bottled water, filtered tap water is the next best option for brewing tea. In some cases, if your water is neutral tasting, you may not need to filter tap water before using it for tea. However, for best results, always filter your tap water (especially if it’s hard water). You can purchase a regular Brita filter or a special water filter for this purpose.
What’s The Verdict On Tap Water?
In general, water can change the flavor of your tea depending on the pH balance and mineral content. If you live in an area where the tap water is hard water or otherwise a bit funky-tasting, then you probably won’t want to use it in your tea. If you’re not loving how your tea is tasting, try using bottled water. If this instantly solves the problem, looking into a basic filtering system that you can use long-term.
Final Thoughts
While water isn’t the only factor that matters in how your tea tastes, it’s absolutely an element you can control. Start here if your tea has been tasting a bit off or if you want to take your tea-tasting experience to the next level!
