Tea is the worlds second most consumed beverage, behind water. To make a cup of tea, however, one needs water. Recently I met up with a good friend who is also a customer of PMD. We sat down at his house and he brewed up a cup of our Silver Tips.
While observing him prepare the tea, I noted that he followed all the correct principles in brewing tea. The tea was also stored in an air tight container. I was taken aback by the final taste in the cup. It was missing something. After a long contemplative think, I realized what was missing from the cup.
When ever we taste tea at the company and at home, we use bottled water. This is because the water in London is very hard and calcified. The best water to use for tea is soft water. Some individuals who are reading this will be lucky enough to get very good quality water straight from their tap. Unfortunately, for me I have to rely on bottled water.
We brewed the same tea again, but this time with bottled water. He was amazed by the greater depth and flavour that he was now able to experience with the same tea leaves.
Many T Ching readers are purchasing quality tea but if they truly want to experience all the depth and flavour of the tea – they need to consider the quality of the water being used for their daily brewing.
If you’re OCD (obsessive-compulsive) like me you might even want to invest in a kettle that is only for brewing bottled water. By making this restriction, you avoid any lime scale build up in your kettle.
To further highlight the importance of water quality we dedicated an episode to this on the PMD Tea Buyers club. Brew your favorite teas in different waters and tell me if you taste and see a difference. I would be interested to know.
Happy Sipping!
Editor’s note: For further ideas on gathering and preparing water for tea, please read T Ching posts from October 29, November 5, and November 12.
This is so true. Most people aren’t aware of how much of a difference water can impact the taste of tea. I know people who have taken the time to determine which bottled water they prefer using for their tea. Each region of the world has different qualities to their bottled water. That is one of the main reasons why when tasting tea at your local tea shop and buying some to bring home, it might not taste as good as it did in the shop. Most tea stores have water filtration systems that assure a tasty cup of tea by eliminating unwanted chemicals and minerals in local tap water.
I use a Brita to filter my water for tea. The local water comes from the Mt. Hood watershed; it has a lot of very fine mineral “flour” dissolved within. Tea brewed from water straight out of the tap tastes metallic at first, bleachy aftertaste. The Brita seems to take all that unpleasant stuff away. We are careful to change the filter before maximum capacity.
So agree about water. We just sent tea samples to Canada to someone quite new to good tea to compare ours with a well-known company from Canada. I asked them to be sure and use bottled water when brewing both, as I didn’t know what the water would be like where they were. It’s just essential. Someone like Mike Spillane of G.S. Haly can literally tell the type of water filtration system being used his palate is so keen. Bad water means bad tea, no matter the tea quality.
Thats so funny, I wrote about how importent water is just a week ago.
Were really spoiled my husband and I, we have super soft and high quality water. We have water from our own well (and we live on a small mountain, teamasters from times past are supposed to prefere water from the mouteains if I remember correctly) and my husband Always take our own water with him anywere becouse all other kinds of water (even bottled) taste bad conpared to ours.
Its amazing how people forget how important really is. You can see the episode her on the Tea Buyers Club of how tasted the same tea and how kettle’s will make a great difference as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbIIbX1Pa3o
@Linnea – So jealous to hear that you are lucky to have good water!