Water

I do not often bring up the topic of water on my blog or even really in my tea drinking.  Although recent events have really made me understand it really does mater, more than I think I ever really thought.  I just have never quite gotten into digging into the down and dirty chemistry of drinking water, this despite my summer and winter job throughout my Undergraduate studies was actually working for the water (and waste water) provider for the small community where my parents lived.  So I oddly know a lot about what the water providers in the US do to their water, and I know certain things like that the water out of any tap from a municipal water provider is more highly regulated than what is in any bottled water from the store.

Though all this knowledge has never let me dig into what makes good or bad water for tea.  When I went to Lehigh University, and lived in Bethlehem, I thought tea tasted pretty darn good, even with just water from the tap, just simply filtered.  Then I moved out to Kalamazoo, and for the longest time I thought "tea just doesn't taste right"  I thought it had to be in my head, maybe pressure from grad school was distracting me and making me just think things were that way.

Cut to three years later.   I have now moved to Lansing and suddenly tea seems so much more alive again, more flavors, more body, better aroma.  I changed nothing from what I was doing to treat my water in Kalamazoo, but suddenly my tea tastes so much better.  Oddly it seems to be with almost every single tea, almost to the point that I feel I need to step back and relearn how to brew each and every single one of my teas, I am enjoying the challenge, and I love the great results I am getting.

I may just need to look up difference in mineral results from the water providers, and start getting into the "geeking" out about water for the purpose of brewing tea.  So in short, while I still do not think it is wise to go out and buy all of your water for tea, water certainly is a very important part of how your tea tastes in the end.