Have you noticed that if you make tea, there is often a shiny film floating on top of it? This will almost certainly be the case if you live in an area with very hard water, and it is due to the minerals including calcium and magnesium in the water. While this is in no way harmful to drink, it does mean that the taste of the tea will be dulled somewhat. To enjoy your tea to its full extent, try using filtered water instead. Let’s look at how and why to do that.

Find out what kind of water you have

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with drinking hard water, indeed the mineral content in very hard water can actually be considered an important part of your daily calcium and magnesium intake. However, before making tea with your tap water, you should determine whether you have soft, hard or very hard water.

The water quality differs a lot around the UK, with the hardest water roughly in the South East of England. Take a moment to find out whether you live in a hard water area or not, as this will inform how you can properly make yourself a cuppa at home.

Use a reverse osmosis filter for hard water

If you do indeed live in a hard water area, using filtered water to make tea with is going to be the best long-term solution for you. A reverse osmosis filter will work well since, chemically speaking, the water you’ll get from one is very similar to naturally soft water. As a result, your tea will taste cleaner, fresher and more flavourful, even if brewed for a shorter time than you would do with hard tap water.

There are several benefits of using filtered water for tea

Using filtered water to make yourself a cup of tea is kinder to your kettle, as it will produce much less unsightly limescale inside your device that you’ll have to regularly clean out. Not only this, but it will also mean that you won’t have to brew your tea for as long, and if you are making a black tea (especially if it’s loose), then you can easily use the same leaves more than once for a full-bodied pot of tea. This is simply because filtered water will infuse with the flavour of the tea much more quickly than hard water will.

Additionally, water filtered using the reverse osmosis method means that it will be very low in sodium, so if you are concerned about your sodium intake, this can be a good way to eliminate some from your diet without sacrificing flavour. Not to mention, there are already also many health benefits of drinking tea, so having more excuses to drink tea is always a good idea!

[Photo by jill111]