Water - I've seen the light!

I use poland spring water. I signed up for home delivery where they give you

5 huge bottles a month (for me about 2.5-3 is enough for month, so I sometimes will call them and tell them not to deliver one month). I believe they are 5 gallon bottles. Poland spring is the better tasting spring water of the ones I tried, as water, because I haven't tried others to make tea. Poland spring in 1/2 liter bottles (or smaller) is the best-tasting, it's significantly better than the water from 1 gallon or 5 gallon bottles. It's hard to describe but it tastles a little like very diluted carrot juice taste, and at the same time this taste seems to add freshness. It tastes almost as good as a really good tea. By the way, these bottles are bottled from a different spring. In fact, they list a number of springs on the bottle. But it may be that this great taste is actually caused by the type of plastic they use for these bottles, I'm not sure. If that is the case, you'd expect small bottles' water to taste better because ratio of inner plastic surface is greater. It may also be that smaller bottles are fresher because they make better money on them and they try to bring you the freshest water in them to encourage us to buy these more expensive (per volume) bottles.

Anyway, the water in NY is reportedly one of the best in the country, but I could never stand tap water - there's too much metallic taste. It may be in part because of my old building, though. Even the filter doesn't do much to alleviate the metallic taste.

I'd like to hear opinions on what spring water is best for teas.

By the way, the method of boiling the water is also important for taste. When I use an electric range, tea tastes differently, and I don't like it, even though it's hard for me to describe the difference. Black teas taste a little sweeter but at the same time muddier. It may be beacuse of the time it takes to boil the water, I noticed that if water is boiled slowly, using small flame of gas range, you also can get similar effect, the best tea I manage to make happens when I boil the water as quickly as possible, with almost maximum flame, even though kettle instructions usually say not to use maximum flame.

Obviously, in a strongly brewed ceylon or assam with plenty of milk, the difference in water is probably not as big. For mild whites and greens, on the other hand...

I forgot to add a few things.. Plastic matters for the bottled spring water. Clear plastic is much better, the other kind will often give a distinct plastic flavor to the water. I would mostly buy Poland Spring 1-gallon bottles because they're the most widely available clear bottles and also because they can stack on top of each other.

There are two more expensive brands - Evian and Fuji. Fuji is about the same as Poland but without sweetness, it's more neutral, but it's only sold in small expensive bottles, and small bottles of Poland still taste better. Evian is just terrible, maybe it's just me but I can't stand it.

Oho, a blend!

There should be a triangle on the bottom with a numeral within the perimeter of the triangle. There should also be some letters under the base of the triangle. The codes I remember are:

1 - PET/PETE 2 - HDPE 3 - ? 4 - LDPE 5 - PP 6 - ? 7 - Other. Some manufacturers are more specific and put PC or SA N or whatever.

The two sizes may also be made of different plastics. Some are definitely better than others. I prefer the #1 PET/PETE and #7 PC/SAN followed by the #4 LDPE. I don't recall what water smells or tastes like after being in a #5 PP container, but I definitely don't like the odor or flavor that transfers from an HDPE container.

How does tap water taste in a new building?

The only ones I've tried are from the Welpman Spring in Morgan County, MO and Samantha Springs of Keller, TX. The Welpman water is slightly salty and has a bite while the Samantha water is sweet and smooth. This was to drink, but that transfers over to tea, also. I prefer the Samantha water.

I haven't gotten that far. I can tell the difference between zapped water and boiled, but nothing else.

As far as I'm concerned, plastic matters for any water.

See my other reply about the types of food-grade plastic. From what you describe, I'm going to guess that the clear plastic is PET/PETE or PP and the flavoring plastic is HDPE, possibly LDPE, but much less so than if it's HDPE. If the clear plastic is hard, since you're able to stack them, I don't know what it is. It may be one of the plastics I already mentioned, just thicker for strength.

I spent a few months in Iowa, and had to find a different source of water than the poor (for tea) well water. After trying all the potential bottled waters at a variety of stores, the best to be found in that region is 'deep rock' water packaged near Denver. Perhaps my taste buds are too tainted, as I thought one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever recieved (and best tea water I had while in Iowa) was a gallon of Colorado Springs tap water from a family member who was on their way through the state. I would strongly bet on Colorado, or another mountainous state's, water surpassing New York water for tea production, as even municipal water systems are filled by melted snow and spring water.

IIRC NYC water comes from a natural reservoir in mountaineous area (there are mountains in NY too, although not of Everest stature). I think the water is very good at the source, but it gets worse as it travels in pipes. Also, isn't it true that all tap water, no matter where it is, will be chlorinated and fluorized? I have no idea, but they'd probably do it even if it wasn't necessary, just in case.

I don't doubt that, I don't actually use plastic anywhere near my water or tea except for getting spring water in plastic bottles.

Well, the clear plastic is really the same as in 80% of all small bottles of water you can pick up in a corner store. There may be some variations among them but not too much.

Well, it's really a matter of the shape of bottle. I don't think there's any plastic used for any type of water that would fold if it was in this shape:

This one's not Poland, although I've only seen this shape used for Poland around here.

Both small .5L and 3L bottle (I just checked, it's not a 1 gallon as I thought), are PETE. But smaller bottle's water is tastier. And the sources are the same except that small bottles include actual poland spring but the larger bottle does not. Both say and/or white cedar spring, so this may vary by bottle size too. I actually asked Poland spring on the phone once if this is something they're aware of, they pretended they have no idea what I'm talking about (maybe they really have no idea.. maybe they don't even drink the water - tap is just fine, whatever).

No idea.. I've been to old buildings only.. Actually once it was sort of a new building but they had a special very expensive filter system installed that was supposed to give some sort of spiritually clean water (I'm not kidding, and they payed about 15 hundred for the system). It did taste better than regular filter water though. Not as good as Poland.

I never tried microwave. We threw ours out anyway. Microwave isn't even good for the food, I'm sure it's even worse for tea.

If you're worried about fluoride, you probably shouldn't be drinking tea at all.

/Lew

I'm not worried about what's in tea itself, but the additional amount of fluoride and its possible effect on taste. -andrei

I would like to mention that my tea group in LA has tried a lot of waters, the 365 Whole Foods water is preferred spring water. However a few of us swear by reverse osmosis water to which we add back a few drops of concentrated ionic minerals (I use concentrace brand). It's more consistent and better than most spring waters.

How does Poland compare to other spring waters?

Not all communities add fluoride to their water. It depends on whether or not they want the controversial type of fluoride that's essentially an industrial waste product and whether or not the noncontroversial type of fluoride is already in their water naturally.

I finished the spring water from MO that doesn't mention additional processing and won't buy it again not only because it didn't taste as good, but also because it left the nastiest-looking film on the surface of my tea and down the inside sides of my clear tumbler and cloudy crud on the formerly clean element of my electric kettle after only one gallon. I recall someone in the past asking about film on the surface of tea, but I don't recall what kind of water was used (and am too busy to google).

My good-tasting spring water from TX was processed by carbon filtration, UV treatment, microfiltration, and ozonation.

(this is the same as Crystal Geyser, btw). I like Volvic as well, but it's more expensive, has to travel farther, and doesn't come in gallon bottles. Arrowhead Mills is the other brand that's commonly available here, and its mineral content is all over the place. Sometimes it's great, but sometimes it's got way too many dissolved solids in it.

I wish there were a way to refill water bottles with spring water, the same way it is possible with filtered water.

w

Yes to chlorination, no to fluoridization. My city, a large US city, has yet to fluoridate its water supply, though it is considering it next year.

doesnt it? it gets filtered thru all kinds of soil, if its out in the sun it gets UV treatment :)

On their site they give a range that goes from just under neutral to just above. 5.9 to 7.16, if I remember right. Neutral is supposed to be exactly 7. But I'm not sure how much spring water varies, maybe they're all at least 5.9.