wave_code wrote: ↑Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:31 am
I was in the general area over the holidays and mostly just making bowl tea while there. I was using local bottled water for the first few days, but even if its local and re-used glass I feel bad about using so much bottled water so I switched to the tap and the difference was huge. Instantly everything I made went to having zero flavor, didn't seem to make any difference trying to use more leaves or go for longer steeps, different teas. Everything suddenly tasted super one dimensional, like a cheap tea bag version of itself.
While for normal drinking i would not use bottled water, either tap water (as here in Germany) or filtered water (when i lived in Bangkok).
But for drinking tea, water of the right quality is absolutely necessary, and unless one lives in an area with pefect quality spring water, one will have to resort to a bottled water. There simply is no alterative if one wants to get the best out of one's expensive and rare teas.
With all the debate over teapots, and brewing techniques, etc - water is the most deciding factor. In the end, a cup of tea constists to 99,9999999.... % of water. If one is not willing to use good mineral water soft enough to suit for tea, one is better off with Lipton tea bags, because the goood teas are wasted, and so is all the expensive tea ware.
I understand the environmental issues with bottled water, so i would always suggest to try to use a water as local as possible (black forest is only a few hundred kilometers away from where i live).