Exploring water

Those who are not into tea may not realize that there are lengthy discussions about what type of water for tea brewing. Some nomadic tribes melt snow to make their tea because that is the most readily available source of water. Most sources recommend filtered tap water, which is what I drink on a daily basis anyway. Some people say that you should not brew tea with hard water because some of the flavor gets caught in the hard water mineral scum that ends up on your cup. Filtered tap water does not eliminate the hard water minerals, but it does get rid of the chlorine in the water. Since my local utility is upgrading the water system and digging new wells, chlorine is a major problem in our water some days. Spring water, artesian water, reverse osmosis water are all waters recommended for brewing (as long as the spring water doesn't have too many minerals in it). Distilled water contains no minerals, and is not recommended for tea brewing saying that it makes for a flat brew. Me being me, I decided to try brewing with distilled water, and filtered water to see what the difference was.

Here are the contenders. Distilled water on the left, filtered tap water on the right. I was brewing wuyi rock tea for 5 minutes in freshly boiled water. I used the same cups, and same style tea baskets. When the brewing time was up, I was surprised.

The tea made with distilled water is so clear. You can easily tell the difference by looking at them which tea was made with which water. It's also true that tea made with distilled water does not taste very good. The scent of the tea was there, but it almost tasted like water. I didn't notice the characteristic drag of tea over my tongue, it felt like I was drinking water. While the tap water tea is more cloudy, and has the characteristic hard water scum on top, it tastes better! The minerals in the water do interact with the tea and make the flavor stronger. The tea also drags across the surface of your tongue when you drink it, and coats the inside of your mouth so you can enjoy the tea flavor longer. While distilled water makes clear, beautiful tea, it doesn't taste as good. Part of me is now imagining food stylists brewing tea with distilled water to take beautiful pictures of tea for ads and stock images. Another part of me imagines food stylists just putting some food coloring in water so it looks like tea for those pictures. I don't know if you have noticed, but so many stock images of green tea show a brew that is GREEN in color. Anyone who knows anything about green tea knows that unless you are drinking matcha powder in water, green tea is NOT GREEN! Sorry, that's a pet peeve of mine. Believe it or not, I don't spend all of my time obsessing over tea and teaware. I also spend my time obsessing over making lace. I'm still working on my moon themed lace for un-con this summer. I'm still working on the design for my crescent/gibbous moons. I have until July to get this figured out.