TeaForum.org

Baisao wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:50 pm

Victoria wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:31 pm

Does anyone have a detailed report on Nice! Iceland Pure Spring Water?

I haven’t been able to find one but I am equally interested. I wonder if “Nice! Iceland Spring Water” is rebranded from “Iceland Spring Water”. If so, this is the report for the latter: http://www.finewaters.com/bottled-water ... and-spring

Yes that’s it, this water is sold under different names, even at Whole Foods as Iceland Natural Spring Water. The PH 8.88, TDS 48. Here is another break down from their web site; http://www.icelandspring.com/my-product ... -phealthy/

I tried it this morning with Satsuma Sae Midori, came out perfectly. Much sweeter and richer than yesterday using local tap that was off. Now I’m curious to compare this water with Trader Joe’s Artesian New Zealand, PH 8, TDS 81.

Iceland Spring Water
Trader Joe’s Artesian New Zealand from home-barista

Victoria wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 14, 2019 2:40 pm

.
I tried it this morning with Satsuma Sae Midori, came out perfectly. Much sweeter and richer than yesterday using local tap that was off. Now I’m curious to compare this water with Trader Joe’s Artesian New Zealand, PH 8, TDS 81.

Iceland Spring Water
F302B9B5-3F4E-4FA4-BE38-FD5ACBFE61D0.jpeg


Trader Joe’s Artesian New Zealand from home-barista
1E6DD523-1DFF-4EC7-B37D-1805CA3FC717.jpeg

I really appreciate this deliberate approach you are taking. I feel this is more helpful than us randomly trying all the available waters. As you dial into the things that make water best, it will make it easier for people with different water suppliers to find the best solutions for their tea.

There may need to be a summarry and a sticky at some point. There's a lit of info in this thread.

Rickpatbrown wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 14, 2019 9:20 pm

....There may need to be a summarry and a sticky at some point. There's a lit of info in this thread.

Yes good idea, I can update the original post adding members favorite selections

Just wondering for those who have TDS meters, or other ways of measuring water quality. When you pour water into an yixing without tea, boiled or cold, and then pour it back out into a glass vessel, is there a drastic change in the readings?

Do yixings change the water quality, or really just affect how the tea brews, and instead interacts more with the tea itself?

Hmm wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:46 pm

Just wondering for those who have TDS meters, or other ways of measuring water quality. When you pour water into an yixing without tea, boiled or cold, and then pour it back out into a glass vessel, is there a drastic change in the readings?

No change whatsoever in TDS.

Hmm wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:46 pm

Do yixings change the water quality, or really just affect how the tea brews, and instead interacts more with the tea itself?

Various clays, not just Yixing, have an affect on the texture of water and also on the aromatics of teas. There’s lots of speculation for why this happens but little to no scientific explanation. Variously, people cite porosity, minerals, ion exchanges, magic, etc. but no one really knows precisely why.

Baisao wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:02 am

magic

Baisao wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:02 am

Hmm wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:46 pm

Just wondering for those who have TDS meters, or other ways of measuring water quality. When you pour water into an yixing without tea, boiled or cold, and then pour it back out into a glass vessel, is there a drastic change in the readings?

No change whatsoever in TDS.

Hmm wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:46 pm

Do yixings change the water quality, or really just affect how the tea brews, and instead interacts more with the tea itself?

Various clays, not just Yixing, have an affect on the texture of water and also on the aromatics of teas. There’s lots of speculation for why this happens but little to no scientific explanation. Variously, people cite porosity, minerals, ion exchanges, magic, etc. but no one really knows precisely why.

So I found a cheap TDS meter, and I'm unsure how well it's working, but I just tried to test using the meter using boiling water. Not sure why it matters but if cold it reads at 90 only. But when boiled it reads at 255ish levels. I poured the boiling water into a zisha pot and it seemed to lower by at least 10% or more. If I use cold water (room tempish) instead, it seemed to increase by 10% or more, but that's after I had poured hot water into it first so maybe the pores were more open at that point? If cold water in a room tempish pot, the readings only seemed to increase a few points instead. Not sure if the meter is reading anything accurately but there does seem to be a change in the water for me at least n using a modern zisha pot. These test results were consistent as well for my meter after a few trials.

When you conducted the test did was the yixing you used high fired versus low fired, zhuni/hongni vs duan, etc.? Did you also try with boiled water to emulate more tea making? Perhaps with zhuni/high fired stuff, the TDS should remain somewhat the same versus other clay types.

How did you conduct the test exactly? Did you test it first and then pour it into the pot, and then back out to test again? Did you also test the water while in the pot?

Thanks.

Hmm wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 8:51 pm

When you conducted the test did was the yixing you used high fired versus low fired, zhuni/hongni vs duan, etc.? Did you also try with boiled water to emulate more tea making? Perhaps with zhuni/high fired stuff, the TDS should remain somewhat the same versus other clay types.

How did you conduct the test exactly? Did you test it first and then pour it into the pot, and then back out to test again? Did you also test the water while in the pot?

Thanks.

The first test was over 10 years ago so I only recalled the result and that I either used xini or zhuni and the control was glass.

I did it again using room temperature water and an early 70s F1 made from hongni.

I used Iceland Springs Water which has a low TDS. The water was poured into a glazed ceramic vessel and TDS measured 41. I poured the water into the F1 hongni teapot and TDS measured 41 inside the teapot. I poured water from the teapot into the glazed ceramic vessel and TDS measured 41.

I did not heat the water since heat does not affect TDS if all the solids are in solution, which they are since there is no precipitate. TDS meters actually measure electrical conductivity. While heating water would not affect electrical conductivity, as inferred above, the heat might affect the testing instrument. This is why room temperature water was used.

No surprises.

Baisao wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 9:48 pm

Hmm wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 8:51 pm

When you conducted the test did was the yixing you used high fired versus low fired, zhuni/hongni vs duan, etc.? Did you also try with boiled water to emulate more tea making? Perhaps with zhuni/high fired stuff, the TDS should remain somewhat the same versus other clay types.

How did you conduct the test exactly? Did you test it first and then pour it into the pot, and then back out to test again? Did you also test the water while in the pot?

Thanks.

The first test was over 10 years ago so I only recalled the result and that I either used xini or zhuni and the control was glass.

I did it again using room temperature water and an early 70s F1 made from hongni.

I used Iceland Springs Water which has a low TDS. The water was poured into a glazed ceramic vessel and TDS measured 41. I poured the water into the F1 hongni teapot and TDS measured 41 inside the teapot. I poured water from the teapot into the glazed ceramic vessel and TDS measured 41.

I did not heat the water since heat does not affect TDS if all the solids are in solution, which they are since there is no precipitate. TDS meters actually measure electrical conductivity. While heating water would not affect electrical conductivity, as inferred above, the heat might affect the testing instrument. This is why room temperature water was used.

No surprises.

According to this (https://www.quora.com/Why-does-warm-wat ... cool-water), it changes the conductivity, and therefore TDS readings. So I was likely just reading temperature levels as it cooled down rather than actual what was dissolved. I guess now that I know that, if you do test water TDS levels, you have to make sure you are testing it at the same temperature, to get a less unbiased reading.

Reminiscence: many aeons ago I read on a forgotten page that boiling water more than once is bad for the tea. Any thoughts on this?

There is no self wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:33 pm

Reminiscence: many aeons ago I read on a forgotten page that boiling water more than once is bad for the tea. Any thoughts on this?

Vigorously boiling water reduces dissolved gasses in water, continuing to vigorously boil the water or immediately reboiling the water will change the “taste”* of that water. However, as the temperature comes down gasses will slowly dissolve back into the water until a saturation is met.

I haven’t tested how long it takes for overly boiled water to “taste” normal again but I have noticed that water seems to be fine within 24 hours.

Note that the studies I saw suggested that the saturation would occur almost instantly as the water cooled. That may be but tea from overly boiled water still “tastes” funny as it cools in the teacup. The gasses may be able to return immediately but I suspect that it takes hours to reach saturation.

* it’s probably texture

Thank you! I guess it's not the most sensible thing to do, then.
It's a concern I have during long winter sessions. I'm afraid the water might cool down too much for pu'erhs or hong cha, but at the same time I don't want to reboil the same water for fear of spoiling the taste.

Baisao wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 19, 2019 8:47 pm

There is no self wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:33 pm

Reminiscence: many aeons ago I read on a forgotten page that boiling water more than once is bad for the tea. Any thoughts on this?

Vigorously boiling water reduces dissolved gasses in water, continuing to vigorously boil the water or immediately reboiling the water will change the “taste”* of that water. However, as the temperature comes down gasses will slowly dissolve back into the water until a saturation is met.

I haven’t tested how long it takes for overly boiled water to “taste” normal again but I have noticed that water seems to be fine within 24 hours.

Note that the studies I saw suggested that the saturation would occur almost instantly as the water cooled. That may be but tea from overly boiled water still “tastes” funny as it cools in the teacup. The gasses may be able to return immediately but I suspect that it takes hours to reach saturation.

* it’s probably texture

Well after I had repeatedly boiled the water poured into a teapot, and then back out again into a glass pitcher, and reboiled again, repeating the process a few times, and then let it cool down the TDS read a bit higher, something like 10% or so more than normal. I think besides gases being let out, perhaps there's also evaporation occurring that raises TDS a bit. Either that or yixing did impart something small.

There is no self wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 20, 2019 10:54 am

Thank you! I guess it's not the most sensible thing to do, then.
It's a concern I have during long winter sessions. I'm afraid the water might cool down too much for pu'erhs or hong cha, but at the same time I don't want to reboil the same water for fear of spoiling the taste.

I think the key is to not abuse the water. I regularly reboil water but only to small bubbles (fish eyes) within a session without detriment. I never boil to large bubbles (dragon eyes). I know many people do boil large bubbles. In that case I would consider not reboiling to dragon eyes soon after.

After some more experience I'm noticing some things.
1) Having more bicarbonate than magnesium and calcium seems to be good.
2) Putting your water in an unglazed clay jar improves roundness, at the expense of imparting some flavor to your water. This could dissipate with repeated use.
3) I've stopped mineralizing my water because it already has a lot of taste and I don't want to add more taste to the water.
4) Castle Rock bottled water is extremely good. Also much too expensive for daily use.
5) Tap water contains metal and plastic taste from the long journey it has had through pipes.
6) Perhaps some good charcoal in the earthenware jar will remove any off taste. Or just charcoal in a glass bottle.
7) If the charcoal removes the off taste in the water, rendering it very pure-tasting, then I would consider adding minerals to adjust the water.
8) People have contacted me saying they will try the 75 75 75 water recipe with RO water. I await the results!
9) Distilled water comes in plastic milk jugs, so I have not considered using it, as it has tons of plastic flavor.
It's clear I have a lot of work to do. If anyone has experience in these areas, please let me know. Water is proving to be a very deep, very fun rabbit hole.