Water for a good tea: bottles, filter and environmental impacts
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 2 апр 2023
- This is a follow-up to the previous video, in which I advocated for the use of bottled water instead of tap water for a great cup of tea.
Is using bottled water really bad for the environment? Are there smart alternatives to it? I have spent three hours researching the topic and share my thoughts after this quick survey.
www.farmer-leaf.com/ 
Наука
this was a wonderful follow-up - thanks for the clarification and additional perspectives you shared here. I’m a lot more comfortable with purchasing bottled water than I used to be. These wok-talks are so great, I hope to see more of them in the future!
As someone who has also studied sustainability, i appreciated this discussion
As someone who studied this topic at a university, im shocked of how well you researched it in 2-3hours :o.
Keep that up!
For coffee, we use demineralised water in which we add mainly magnesium and sodium bicarbonate. Adding the good amount of sodium bicarbonte is really helpful to balance the sourness of the beverage.
I've found that for me, 4 parts distilled water to 1 part filtered tap water gives me a fairly consistent 50-60 TDM in the area of the UK I live in.
Hi William, I solve my Water Quality Issue by buying Distilled Bottled Water, for Drinking, Cooking, and Making either Tea or Coffee. Everything else, washing dishes, flushing toilet, washing my car, watering the yard, and so on, tao water is ok. How do I know the Distilled Water really is what they say it is? Measure the Water Resistance with a Digital Voltmeter, that usually has a Resistance Function, and it better be at least 20 Megohms (20 Million Ohms) or more. The higher the Resistance, the Less Ions in the Water. In fact, if you can get it over 100 Megohms (100 Million Ohms), THAT is Really Good Distilled Water. For those who are concerned about Minerals, get and take a Vitamin Supplement that also has Minerals too, and/or Drink Good Tea. What's that? I say it's Tea's made from Old Tea Trees, that have never been "Helped" by Man, with Chemical Fertilizers, Pesticides, Herbicides, etc etc. It must be completely Organic and Natural, and I think some of your Old Tea Trees are in that category where you only cut the weeds, and Harvest the Tea Leaf's off of it. The Real Natural ones are like the High Mountain Tea Trees in Taiwan, that grow above 5,000+ feet Altitude, where there are No People, and it's Nowhere Near any Cities or Towns, so it's completely Clean and Natural, with absolutely No Pollution of any kind, Air, Water, or Soil... None!!! I found some Tea's from Northern Vietnam, which is close to Yunnan Province, where there are Very Old Tea Trees like that, they think from 200-600 years old, with Very Deep Tap Roots, so it can get All the Minerals out of the ground that it needs to make truly Superior Tea Leaf's that have Amazing Flavors, Taste, Aromas, and Aftereffects. So, I am drinking that for my Vitamin and Mineral intake. I bought their Black, Green, White, and Yellow Teas made from those teees, and drinking this wide variety of Teas, to capture as much Vitamins and Minerals as I can. I live in Southern California now, as a Retired Person, but I was an Engineer in Silicon Valley for over 30+ years, working in the Semiconductor Industry, and I can tell you, those companies did more to Pollute the Ground Water in the Santa Clara Valley than everybody else put together!!! Back then, there were no Regulations, so they would just Dump the Solvents in the Back Parking Lot, right into the Ground, and now, the Ground Water in Santa Clara Valley is all Polluted with Super Poisonous Cancer Causing Solvents. The US Government has declared the former Fairchild Semiconductor Plant as a "SUPER-FUND" Site, to try to remove all the Polluted Water, but it's just not possible. Anybody drinking water in Silicon Valley is just Asking to come down with CANCER!!! So, that's what I do, buy Distilled Water, and Measure the Water Resistance of Each Jug, before I drink it. So far, all the Jugs really are Distilled Water. And, I lOVE the Old Tea Tree Tea's!!! They REALLY DO taste BETTER than Any Farm Raised Tea's. Until next time, may you have Peace, and Tea!!! :o)
Oh, how I love this Wok-Talks ❤❤❤
Thank you so much William!😊😊😊
most guests in our tea ceremonies are very happy with themself that they use german brita filters for their "hard" tap water. when we tell them, that those filters dont really de-carbonize the water and that they are potential harmful, they dont really want to believe that.
A wonderful discussion on a very complex topic! Thank you for perpetuating the image of a well mannered intellectual!
Report on Water for Brewing Tea by Zhang Yiuxin
Zhang Yiuxin (张又新), Report on Water for Brewing Tea, (煎茶水记), 814 CE.
This is the earliest monograph on water for tea.
Content
A short list of water ranking from seven locations:
Nanling of Yangtse river
Wuxi Hui Mountain Temple Spring
Suzhou Tiger Hill Temple Spring
Danyang Guanyin Temple
Yangzhou Da Ming Temple
Wuzhong River
Huai River
An anecdote about Lu Yu's magical ability as water connoisseur.
Ranking for water from twenty locations.
Interesting topic. We made a test with some tea at the weekend. We used our hard water near cologne, Germany and some bottle water at the same time.
There were minimal differences with Sencha and three different pu erh.
But to be honest, it is not easy to say which was better or if the hard water was that bad.
Even the water is hard, it is very good quality here
I did the calculation for C02 emission by aviation transport for the 4,38kg of tea I purchase annually from China. That is about 93kg of C02. This provides some perspective in this matter. I do not use bottled water, but interesting topic nevertheless.
I don't know much about this topic but I use the Laica coffee & tea Bi-Flux filter, which is supposed to be made especially for brewing stuff. From the data on the back of the box, it seems to reduce the hardness from moderately hard (in my European city) to soft. I haven't had tea scum since I've been using it and my kettle seems to scale way less too.
Easyest, simplest end best solution : the solubility of CACO3 et 50°C without CO2 is 15 mg/l. So boil to remove CO2, then filter in a simple cotton mesh to remove the precipitate.
Your water is now excellent, eaven if like me, you tap is over 300 mg/l. Juste wash your mesh with vinegar when it's clogged. Tested with multiple teas, compared with bottles, and approved !
Other solutions use either more energy or more water : for instance, the more efficient, reverse osmosis uses ten times the water you receive to function...
Feel free to tell me If I'm wrong tho : Am I over-symplifiing things ?... but green tea don't lie =)
hey yo when I boil hard water lime aggregates in the kettle which must have come from the water
Some RO systems have a more complex set up which produces less wastewater, I've seen one with a 1:1.5 ratio on amazon.
If the filtering solution works, that's perfect! But it will only filter the lime, and not the other minerals.
Hi William,
Water quality is a serious issue for the modern tea lover, and is my primary concern in my tea drinking. I have however only measured TDS so far and so I use TDS and taste/performance as my metrics for evaluating water.
I am from the UK and travel in Asia extensively and have only found real soft bottled water
Great follow-up video. Thank you!
Very interesting topic. Thank you for sharing your views and knowledge. Your videos are always worth watching!
My main problem is that in Hungary the tap water and 99% of bottled waters are too hard. We used a pitcher just to get a better tasting water and a distiller for coffee water (with remineralization of course). But my distiller died after 4 years, so RO is coming to replace both.
Hi William, How about using Refillable 5-Gallon Water Containers? Water is something we will always need, so as long as you can find a place that will Refill your Refillable 5-Gallon Plastic Container, there is nothing to Dispose of. Problem solved. May you have Peace and Tea. :o)
very good discussion! In Latin America, the tap water cannot be drank without first boiling it. I've even seen people adding a little bleach to the water to wash fruits & vegetables. I've always used bottled water to brew tea in Ecuador. Many people there use reverse osmosis
Is this something you know from experience? Or is it a cultural truism, like being cold will make you sick?
@@Mandragara experience. I lived in 6 latin countries the last 5 years (visited others). I'm moving to Ecuador permanently in a few months.
There may be a few latin countries where the tap is safe, but most aren't.
Some are better than others. Usually, the water is clean at the plant, but gets contaminated on its way to homes & businesses.
Water borne parasites are a common thing. Eating a spoonful of papaya seeds is the home remedy.
Personally, I always drink a little of the tap wherever I go to try and acclimate my stomach. Locals almost always cringe 😅
Interestingly, (I was in Iceland last year) Iceland has 1 of the best tap waters in the world, but you can't drink the hot tap water because of the sulfur 😲 you can smell it, its so strong
@@leeennise.a3338 Very interesting! I drank the tap water in Sri Lanka when I visited because I didn't realise you weren't supposed to drink it. I never got sick though - so it made me wonder how dangerous it really is. Or if it is more like an irrational panic, like fear of sharks.
Good to know it's a real danger and I probably just got lucky. Or all the spices killed everything!
@@Mandragara 🤣 yeah. I think long term use is the problem. However, I'm certain that a single glass of water gave me horrible diarrhea in Guatemala. 😅
I met a Sri Lankan girl while in Iceland. She was adopted by Icelanders. Used to be a big thing there. Who knew! Cheers to you! I'll pour you a nice cup of Gulan if you're ever in Ecuador 💙
For me an intresting topic to talk about. Besides the enviromental point of things i have been using a Zerowater filter because it gave me the best results with the teas i like to drink (mainly sheng puerh, Yancha and Hong Cha). The Zerowater says it gets out almost all, if not all, disolvable solids and thing like florides and chlorides. I have tested this with their TDS meter but also mine at work once (i work in a laboratory). That one seems to be a good alternative to a reverse osmoses system i feel. Anyone been able to compare the Zerowater filter system with a bigeer settup and how does it compare?
If it works, that's fine, I would expect the filter to clog rapidly if you have hard water, the reverse osmosis system should work for a much longer time.
Are you mixing with a little mineral water? I would find 0 TDS from my ZeroWater filter alone to be not optimal but 25-50 TDS is perfect :)
@@farmerleaf61 It does get to 0 TDS and I am also sensative to the smell of chloride in water, especially when it makes my tea have an ever so slight smell of swimming pool water which does simply not smell right.
I started using it due to a tea class i took and my town having very hard water. I drink more or less 1 liter of tea every single day and slightly more during the weekends but 4 filters (which would evarge arround 65 euro for the 4) lasts me for half a year or so. Noted that i use them till i smell gravel smell or chlorides (which is arround 40 TDS). The reason i did not invest into an osmosis system is because i live in a rather small living space and plan to move soon for work so investing into something like that would be more economical once i get settled somewhere. but do not know how it compares in taste.
Where I'm from in the US, our water supplier is notorious for producing water which is hazardous to drink. Often our water comes from the tap yellow/brown with boil advisories nearly once a week. They use fairly harsh methods to purify the water, and have been known to produce water which is legally classified as undrinkable. They get around this by making everyone who pays for water services essentially buy a stake in the company as part of the expense so they can get around being sued, since suing them would mean suing yourself. It's not as bad for some other parishes around here, but most have pretty awful water standards.
Rural America really seems like a pre-industrialized country sometimes
Here in Germany I mostly use tab water, since it is very safe to drink. Actually it is more often controlled than bottled water. My tab water in a city is medium to hard. 13°dH or 0,728 ppm.
When living in a village the water can be excellent here! 6°dH or 0,336 ppm.
When I take time to drink tea and relax, then I am using very soft (1°dH or 0,056 ppm) bottled water from a water source relatively nearby, and mix it with a bit of tab water. Otherwise it is to soft for me. Some of the teas I do also prefer with the tab water.
I don't wanted to use filters mostly because of the plastic waste it would produce. Now after a few years I am also used to it.
It seems people do get used to tasting tea with hard water. I find it acceptable for the highly oxidized teas, but you always get a better aroma with soft water.
BTW, I use the empty 1-gallon water jugs as containers for my teas. You have to put cold water in first, and Infuse the Tea separately in a container that will not Melt, like a Glass Measuring Cup (I use a 4-cup Glass Measuring Cup, just to get the tea Brewed, let it cool, then add it to the water jug). So far, I'm up to 20+ water jugs of types and kinds of teas, I print out a label that I attach to the outside of the jug to ID what's inside, and then just have a variety of teas to choose from and enjoy. When one gets low, I just brew up some more of that tea, and fill it back up. I'm thinking to buy a 8-cup Glass Measuring Cup, because the 4-cup is just not quite big enough. I think an 8-cup Glass Measuring Cup full of Tea will weigh about 10 pounds, including the cup, so I'll have to be very careful with it. It will take practice, but pouring out of something that big and heavy, without spilling, will take some time and practice. I make my teas 1-gallon at a time, so that's why I'd need that 8-cup Glass Measuring Cup, to do the Infusions, without melting anything, like the water jug. Simple challenge, with a simple solution. May you all have Peace and Tea. :o)
In the last video someone mentioned the zero water filter. Have you encountered it during your research? I would be interested in your opinion on it vs let's say a Britta filter or even as a cheaper alternative to a reverse osmosis system.
Yes, I saw a mention of it twice. In one, it said it did deliver zero tds. The other article was a comparative review and placed it among the lowest ranking pitchers, I didn't understand on which criteria they ranked the filters. Have you had a good experience with this one? I don't know how they can filter minerals without reverse osmosis, a process which implies having a good amount of 'waste water' that must leave through another pipe.
@@farmerleaf61 I have used their filter pitcher in four different regions of the US. When the filter is new, testing the filtered water with a basic TDS meter does show 0 TDS water. The filter lasts a few months if the tap water is fairly low TDS to begin with (20~80 TDS), but in a location with 300+ TDS tap, the filter started leaching minerals after a couple weeks of daily use. I don't know how it works, but it does work. I use it because even the low TDS tap doesn't taste good to me, and I assume it is due to the particular makeup of minerals in the water. When using 0 TDS water, what are the drawbacks other than the tea being more harsh than with more ideal water? I don't know your experiences with it or how much testing you have done, but it would be great to hear more about that.
@@bennnnnnn You could add unfiltered tap water to the filtered water to increase the mineral content.
Ben explained the workings quite well here! I am also using it for some time although anecdotally I have varied experience even when brewing the same tea in the same vessel but that just might be my inexperience.
This trick you mention William on first filtering to 0 or low tds and mixing with unfiltered tap water, would the end result be comparable to bottled water, in theory? I actually have done this a few times simply because I needed a little extra water and didn't want to wait on the water to filter properly and I can't recall being dissatisfied :)
It's just the fact that I think it could be some sort of placebo effect unless one calculates the proper ratios etc.
What do you think of the argument (often made these days) to not have children for environmental reasons? The largest contribution to climate change you will ever make is to have a child. Was this something you considered before you had a child?
we could solve global warming with enough directed effort towards upscaling nuclear energy and pollution with widescale policy. the powers that be do not do this because they do not care. having a child will help change the world for the positive. disregard anti-natalism.
“If you only do one thing, collect rainwater.” - Bill Mollison
Some place is illegal to collect rainwater, but other than that, it cam even be good to environment.
Of course rainwater collection is not a simple topic, but it shouldn't be too complex for the amount of water for brewing tea.
Hope you are interested in this topic. :D
If you have a city nearby, the rain water will be acidic. Sadly most rains aren't potable anymore.
@@666aron Rainwater would still need a filter system, adjust to the needs. It's just more likely not gonna need to deal with the metals, which is a lot simpler.
Rain collection for potable water could be difficult, but could also be really simple. I think it's a good idea to know there is another option. :)
www.livescience.com/is-drinking-rainwater-safe
@@morrish.6784 maybe rainwater filtered with a brita pitcher could work.
@@farmerleaf61 I think the newer version of Brita filter can remove PFAS. Also charcoal filter do works on PFAS.
In my opinion reverse osmosis is not a great alternative. From my experience looking into it it reduces tds levels to basically non existent (like below 20 tds), which isn't something I want either. I see that as too low for tea and not something that would necessarily occur naturally in a way that people would've traditionally brewed tea.
And if it's anything like purchased reverse osmosis water it's under 5 tds (almost all I've seen without added back minerals are)
That's why you should consider to add a remineralization cartridge to your RO set up. Some ready to use systems provide the whole package.
@farmerleaf61 it is something for me to consider later with more permanent residence but that is alot of money to spend, I wonder what the impact is on developing the ro systems. I assume much less than the bottles. Would take a long time to pay for itself though. And for me at least there is something slightly less magical about using remineralized ro tap water vs spring water.
For now I will be sticking with bottles though, but that does seem to be one of the only decent alternatives I suppose.
A couple of notes:
- cows produce so much more than just meat to feed us, their waste is used as fertilizer, for example.
- before industrialization and large scale farming the world had the same amount of bovines as today, they were part of the ecosystem
Check out Leather Apron Club's video on whether we will end up eating insects if you're interested on the subject.
They were part of the ecosystem but are they still ?
In the US, using a water filter built into my refrigerator for convenience
as much as I hate being stuck here in New York State the one good side is we have some of the best water for making tea in the whole country. the only state with better water is Florida where I was born both have very deep aquifers in stone it's lime stone for Florida and sandstone in New York so both have excellent water for tea
Aquifers out of Zisha clay. When and where? ^^
San Francisco has Melted Snow City Water, from the Hetch Hetchy Reservour over in Yosemite National Park, and that water is to DIE FOR!!!