As a lot of people know, when brewing tea the water can be as important
to the taste of the beverage as the leaves. It does bother me, though,
to think of whats involved in trucking water halfway around the world
just to improve the taste in my cup.

I know there are products available to supply minerals small quantities
of would change the taste of tea, but I havent studied them.

Just as a probe into this topic, I wonder if anyone could suggest a way
to supplement, say, filtered New York City tap water

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate09.pdf

(mineral analysis on p. 12) so its composition would approximate Volvic
mineral water?

http://www.mineralwaters.org/index.p...sp&parval=2761

If Scott Dorsey tells me, just add N milligrams/liter of Burton Water
Salts, Ill be a happy man, but I kind of doubt it - theres papain in
there, right?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Is NYC water that bad. My brother-in-law who lives in Minnesota
convinced my wifes parents their SF water supply is polluted. They
bought an icebox with a charcoal filter for their drinking water. I
got the lecture on the last trip not to use tap water because of all
the nasty minerals. I wasnt going to argue that is a good thing. I
think my brother-in-law doesnt know his minerals from primordial
soup. It takes forever and a day to heat chilled water. My water
comes from a well 500ft into an acquifer. However at the pressure
tank there are bacteria which live on or produce iron oxide which adds
a taste. City folk tell me its the best water theyve every tasted. I
think the Japanese add rock to their water to supply extra minerals
which I think was discussed here at one point in time. You can
probably find something similar in the holistic community. I cant
tell you how many homes Ive seen with newly installed reverse osmosis
filtration because of newly borns. There was a period in the eighties
where delivered glass bottled water was fashionable but has been
replaced by discarded plastic in landfills. I know chlorine taste is
boiled off. The number one threat to the ecosystem is not climate
change but potable water. The wars in the future will be about water
as much as energy. I digress.

Jim

On Mar 10, 3:34 pm, Lewis Perin > wrote:
> As a lot of people know, when brewing tea the water can be as important
> to the taste of the beverage as the leaves. It does bother me, though,
> to think of what’s involved in trucking water halfway around the world
> just to improve the taste in my cup.
>
> I know there are products available to supply minerals small quantities
> of would change the taste of tea, but I haven’t studied them.
>
> Just as a probe into this topic, I wonder if anyone could suggest a way
> to supplement, say, filtered New York City tap water
>
> http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate09.pdf
>
> (mineral analysis on p. 12) so its composition would approximate Volvic
> mineral water?
>
> http://www.mineralwaters.org/index.p...sp&parval=2761
>
> If Scott Dorsey tells me, just add N milligrams/liter of Burton Water
> Salts, I’ll be a happy man, but I kind of doubt it - there’s papain in
> there, right?
>
> /Lew
> ---
> Lew Perin /

Space Cowboy > writes:

>Is NYC water that bad.

No, but Ive had €œbakeoff€� experiences in which NYC tap brewed tea
noticeably inferior to certain mineral waters.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin > wrote:
>Just as a probe into this topic, I wonder if anyone could suggest a way
>to supplement, say, filtered New York City tap water
>
> http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate09.pdf
>
>(mineral analysis on p. 12) so its composition would approximate Volvic
>mineral water?
>
> http://www.mineralwaters.org/index.p...sp&parval=2761
>
>If Scott Dorsey tells me, just add N milligrams/liter of Burton Water
>Salts, Ill be a happy man, but I kind of doubt it - theres papain in
>there, right?

Burton's Water Salts is gypsum, epsom salts, and I think potassium chloride.
It's a good first step toward making a pure water into a soft mineral water,
and it's certainly inexpensive enough to try.

I think the things you care about are sodium, potassium, iron, magnesium,
and calcium; if you get those more or less in the right ratios you should
be happy.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

>Lewis Perin > wrote:
>>Just as a probe into this topic, I wonder if anyone could suggest a way
>>to supplement, say, filtered New York City tap water
>>
>> http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate09.pdf
>>
>>(mineral analysis on p. 12) so its composition would approximate Volvic
>>mineral water?
>>
>> http://www.mineralwaters.org/index.p...sp&parval=2761
>>
>>If Scott Dorsey tells me, just add N milligrams/liter of Burton Water
>>Salts, I€„¢ll be a happy man, but I kind of doubt it - there€„¢s papain in
>>there, right?
>
>Burton's Water Salts is gypsum, epsom salts, and I think potassium chloride.
>It's a good first step toward making a pure water into a soft mineral water,
>and it's certainly inexpensive enough to try.
>
>I think the things you care about are sodium, potassium, iron, magnesium,
>and calcium; if you get those more or less in the right ratios you should
>be happy.

Hmm. Its actually pretty hard to get the numbers on Burton. But for
New York City vs. Volvic, if all 5 of your ions are really important, it
looks kind of bleak. Note the iron surplus NYC has:

NYC Volvic
sodium 9 9.4
potassium 0.5 5.7
iron 40 <0.01
magnesium 1.2 6.1
calcium 5.5 9.9

No supplementation - Burton or whatever - will affect that, and its
such a high ratio that dilution with distilled water would have to be,
well, homeopathic.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin > wrote:
>Hmm. It's actually pretty hard to get the numbers on Burton.

That's because everyone has their own particular ratio of the three
ingredients. But it's basically adding calcium, potassium, and magnesium.

> But for
>New York City vs. Volvic, if all 5 of your ions are really important, it
>looks kind of bleak. Note the iron surplus NYC has:
>
> NYC Volvic
>sodium 9 9.4
>potassium 0.5 5.7
>iron 40 <0.01
>magnesium 1.2 6.1
>calcium 5.5 9.9

And my guess is that 90% of what you don't like about the NYC water is the
excess of iron. If it weren't for that, Burton's actually would fit the
bill for you.

>No supplementation - Burton or whatever - will affect that, and its
>such a high ratio that dilution with distilled water would have to be,
>well, homeopathic.

However, I bet distilled water and a little salts would be cheaper than
Volvic by a long shot.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

>Lewis Perin > wrote:
>>Hmm. It's actually pretty hard to get the numbers on Burton.
>
>That's because everyone has their own particular ratio of the three
>ingredients. But it's basically adding calcium, potassium, and magnesium.
>
>> But for
>>New York City vs. Volvic, if all 5 of your ions are really important, it
>>looks kind of bleak. Note the iron surplus NYC has:
>>
>> NYC Volvic
>>sodium 9 9.4
>>potassium 0.5 5.7
>>iron 40 <0.01
>>magnesium 1.2 6.1
>>calcium 5.5 9.9
>
>And my guess is that 90% of what you don't like about the NYC water is the
>excess of iron. If it weren't for that, Burton's actually would fit the
>bill for you.
>
>>No supplementation - Burton or whatever - will affect that, and it€„¢s
>>such a high ratio that dilution with distilled water would have to be,
>>well, homeopathic.
>
>However, I bet distilled water and a little salts would be cheaper than
>Volvic by a long shot.

Indeed. On the other hand...I need to apologize. Ive done a bit more
web searching on the topic of iron in water, and the more I looked the
more it seemed 40mg/liter was an outlier. So I checked back at that NYC
water quality report, and irons denominated in *micro*grams. So NYC
taps iron level, while still higher than Volvics, might not be an
obstacle. I really need to try this.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin > wrote:
>Indeed. On the other hand...I need to apologize. Ive done a bit more
>web searching on the topic of iron in water, and the more I looked the
>more it seemed 40mg/liter was an outlier. So I checked back at that NYC
>water quality report, and irons denominated in *micro*grams.

Try the Burton's then... add it until you can taste it. When you can taste
it you've used too much.

The thing about iron is that a lot of it is leached into pipes within an
individual building if the building has older iron pipes. So even if the
city count is low, the count at your tap can be high.

Iron is also a major problem for Kodak-chemistry color film processing
as well. A friend of mine was moving his lab and did water samples from
all prospective locations he was considering and the variation was very
high.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."