Water Water Everywhere... What’s Your Water?

[belewfripp]

I am now a week into my second round of water experiments. They have been somewhat complicated by the fast-following introduction of new brewing implements (jianshui gaiwan) and a new kettle (Bonavita 1.7 L). However, I believe I've sorted out which effects are coming from where and can focus again on what the water itself is doing.

I started with the most recent water formulation from Empirical Tea and then added some potassium chloride (based on Teasecret's remark) - 77 mg specifically (into the 10x concentrate), which is ~ 1.8 mg of potassium per 1.7 liters of water once diluted with distilled water (though actually I'm using filtered tap water instead of distilled - this may be adding some trace amounts of minerals that distilled would not, but it also seems to make slightly better-tasting tea, so I'm prepared to live with the uncertainty ).

I then prepared another version to which I added 180 mg of ferrous sulfate for the iron. Tetsubins appear to make a significant difference in how tea tastes, according to many - too many for me to ignore. That said, I look at the cost of a good tetsubin (and were I to buy one, I'd want it to have some aesthetic value) and think, "I could buy a lot of tea with that money". You know what costs a lot less than a tetsubin? Ferrous sulfate powder. So, in that went. I should note that ferrous sulfate has two slightly unpleasant side effects: one, get much of it on your hands and your fingers are going to smell like a kindergartner with a nosebleed until your next shower; two, the subsequent gallon of 10x concentrate will look disarmingly like the pandemic has driven you to the Howard Hughes/Montgomery Burns lengths of saving your own urine (or drinking it). A label is therefore a good idea, lest any of your family members become even more convinced of your weakening grip on reality than your already-quite-insane decision to modify your own water for tea has done.

I tried both systematically with three teas I know well and found the entire process educational and yet incredibly dull (I like learning, so those two don't usually go together, though YMMV). I concluded that both waters needed a lot more chloride. I'm not sure if it's my palate, the tea or what, but there was a harsh, acrid note on the front of my tongue with all three. In went enough Himalyan pink salt (which is also adding trace but likely insignificant amounts of things other than sodium and chloride), adjusted for the concentrate already used, to equal a 3 g/3.78 liters (1 gallon) ratio (in the 10x concentrate). That happened on Tuesday, I believe. Since then, I have been testing both but less systematically so I can actually enjoy the process of making tea. Each day I decide to use one or the other and have decided I'm fine with not necessarily testing in sequence on the same tea with the other water on the same day. I am keeping notes after the entire session with a given tea is done, just so I don't forget.

Overall, I think the improvement of more salt (NaCl) helped, but i may have overdone it and once done with these I may reduce the next 10x concentrate I try to 2 g/3.78 liters (1 gallon) to bring back some additional complexity. I find that the water with the added ferrous sulfate/iron is better than that without, overall, but may tone it down to 150 mg as every so often I do get a slight tinge of vampiric aftertaste from the tea. I have not used either on any green or white teas, and am still using filtered tap for them as that seems to work best, and I think when all is said and done there may also be teas that prefer the non-iron-added version of the formula. I suspect I will end up keeping a couple different mixes on hand for different situations. So far, though, I am happy with the experiments and feel that most of the tea I'm drinking has been better for the changes, and hope that continued refinements will keep moving in that direction.

EDIT: The quantities mentioned above are again for the 10x concentrate. While 180 mg of ferrous sulfate in one gallon of water, drunk straight, won't hurt you (a single iron pill is 325 mg usually), iron is very toxic when over-consumed. Potassium chloride is sold as a salt substitute so, again, unless you go nuts you're unlikely to run into issues, but getting your electrolytes out-of-whack can also cause problems. When adjusted for 1 part concentrate to 9 parts filtered tap, I'm calculating each 1.7 liters of water contains roughly (all rounded up):

76 mg of sodium
22 mg of calcium
6 mg of magnesium
2 mg of potassium
3 mg of iron

And then there's also ton of chloride in there, but the human body can more or less absorb however much chloride you consume, provided you are getting plenty of water. Sulfate is generally fine in quantities < 250 mg, and by my back-of-the-envelope match just now, there's about 55 mg/L in the formulation I'm using.

[belewfripp]

I started with the most recent water formulation from Empirical Tea and then added some potassium chloride (based on Teasecret's remark) - 77 mg specifically (into the 10x concentrate), which is ~ 1.8 mg of potassium per 1.7 liters of water once diluted with distilled water (though actually I'm using filtered tap water instead of distilled - this may be adding some trace amounts of minerals that distilled would not, but it also seems to make slightly better-tasting tea, so I'm prepared to live with the uncertainty ).

I decided i'm unwilling to live with the uncertainty and have made a few deductions based on negative results:

1) Adding ferrous sulfate to the other water formulas was a mistake. It's interesting - when I (very carefully) add a tiny amount of ferrous sulfate to filtered tap water used to brew some older puer that has that "caramelized forest floor" flavor and aroma to it, it really enhances and brings out the taste and aroma of the tea. But if I add some table salt to that, it turns really sour. I was experiencing a similar effect with many of the teas I brewed this week with the "iron-added" test formulas. I am conjecturing that what is happening is, among other things, the formation of ferric chloride which is pretty strongly acidic (read: sour) and has a tendency to react with other chloride salts, as well. My test formulas this past week regularly had rust-colored precipitates hanging out on the bottom of their containers, which tells me *something* was forming.

My original iron test water didn't have this problem, so maybe I just didn't wait long enough between dissolving compounds? I dunno. I may eventually come back to trying this again, very carefully, but for now I think the ferrous sulfate will be a "time of brewing seasoning" to otherwise-unaltered water (done very carefully, given the toxicity of large amounts of iron).

2) Despite the above, I think I will at some point try a solution that uses ferrous sulfate with no chloride salts, so with the items I have on hand that would limit it to baking soda, and sulfates of magnesium and calcium. Hm.

3) I had enough negative results this week to conclude i need to control for the distilled vs filtered tap thing. I was under the impression my Pur filter was reducing TDS by some significant quantity, but it isn't. I should also maybe bite the bullet and send my water away for testing if I'm really going to be serious about this. In any case, I'm back to making the concentrated formulas with distilled water and adding them to distilled when diluting for teatime.

4) I wonder if a reasonably-priced, food grade hydrate of silver exists? Silver kettle-brewed results always sound quite nice for certain teas, but the price is more expensive than I'm ready to pay just to experiment at this point.

5) Some of the tea I'm testing just isn't that great and while it can still be useful to see how it changes, some teas no matter how many permutations of brewing vessel, temp, brew time or water you try, it's gonna come out mediocre.

[faj]

5) Some of the tea I'm testing just isn't that great and while it can still be useful to see how it changes, some teas no matter how many permutations of brewing vessel, temp, brew time or water you try, it's gonna come out mediocre.

Also, and I think more importantly, what improves one tea (given a drinker's subjective preferences) may not improve another tea. It is fun experimenting, but in the end what "optimizes" tea you are not interested in drinking, tweaked water or not, may not yield improvements for teas you want to drink. I find it more fun to start from a tea and preparation method I already like, and try to improve on that with small (or sometimes big) changes, rather than try to derive general rules using teas and methods that are not relevant to my tea drinking, and then try to apply that abstract knowledge to teas I like. Because of how many variables are involved, probabilities seem too high that the abstract knowledge does not transfer anyway.

[belewfripp]

5) Some of the tea I'm testing just isn't that great and while it can still be useful to see how it changes, some teas no matter how many permutations of brewing vessel, temp, brew time or water you try, it's gonna come out mediocre.

Also, and I think more importantly, what improves one tea (given a drinker's subjective preferences) may not improve another tea. It is fun experimenting, but in the end what "optimizes" tea you are not interested in drinking, tweaked water or not, may not yield improvements for teas you want to drink. I find it more fun to start from a tea and preparation method I already like, and try to improve on that with small (or sometimes big) changes, rather than try to derive general rules using teas and methods that are not relevant to my tea drinking, and then try to apply that abstract knowledge to teas I like. Because of how many variables are involved, probabilities seem too high that the abstract knowledge does not transfer anyway.

Absolutely and a great point. Mostly, I'm just trying to understand some general parameters for things that can potentially happen, to give me reference points when working with new tea (or improving not-so-great tea I already own and which has some redeeming character). I'm not looking for a rigid framework, more an understanding of possible outcomes to draw from, and tools available to adjust.

A good example would be old logs of people noting their daily tea, how they brewed it, what happened, etc. That person's setup may have no relevance to mine, and trying to ape it exactly is going to be futile; but if I read 1000 of these, that's 1000 possibilities I know exist. Maybe I won't personally run into all (or even many) of them, but it provides context. Experimenting with water allows me to do something similar - maybe what i'm doing with the 2005 Zi Pin Hao from Wistaria this morning won't work with another tea, but at least I know it could, or have an idea of what might be wrong with how I'm approaching a tea in the future.

Also, I do think it is beyond my ability to remember a specific procedure for every tea I own or will own, especially if I keep accumulating more. Knowing that, in general, approach A has worked (for me) for semi-aged sheng puer stored traditionally (to make up an example), is a helpful shortcut. May not always work - different leaves, different harvest, different processing - but having some rules of thumb I think makes it so I don't have to start from scratch every time.

[mbanu]

Hopefully this won't be viewed as trolling, I am earnestly curious -- when you find that a tea doesn't brew well in your local water, why do you stick with it and try to change the water, rather than pick a different tea?

In China, I get the impression there was regional pride at play, where they wanted to support the local tea, even if it was far enough away that the local water is not a good fit. In pre-PRC times (and maybe today), there was also some conspicuous consumption involved in importing special water for your tea; people did it just to make it clear they could afford to do it.

Since British-style teas played a big part for me early on, I was struck by their opposite approach, of finding a tea to fit the local water, with only general demands, such as "I want a tea that tastes good with milk." If it is from Assam in India or the Rift Valley in Kenya or a particularly strong Yingde or Yunnan black tea from China is less important than that it plays nicely with the local water.

Is it the same for you in being a regional pride issue (or for bragging rights), or is there another reason?

[belewfripp]

Hopefully this won't be viewed as trolling, I am earnestly curious -- when you find that a tea doesn't brew well in your local water, why do you stick with it and try to change the water, rather than pick a different tea?

In China, I get the impression there was regional pride at play, where they wanted to support the local tea, even if it was far enough away that the local water is not a good fit. In pre-PRC times (and maybe today), there was also some conspicuous consumption involved in importing special water for your tea; people did it just to make it clear they could afford to do it.

Since British-style teas played a big part for me early on, I was struck by their opposite approach, of finding a tea to fit the local water, with only general demands, such as "I want a tea that tastes good with milk." If it is from Assam in India or the Rift Valley in Kenya or a particularly strong Yingde or Yunnan black tea from China is less important than that it plays nicely with the local water.

Is it the same for you in being a regional pride issue (or for bragging rights), or is there another reason?

Well, speaking only for myself, it's definitely not for bragging rights - no one else around here that I'm aware of gives a fig about "weird tea from China" and I'm pretty sure when I mentioned "tea cakes" to my Dad, he was thinking something along the lines of a British snack rather than puer or something And being in the northeastern U.S., there is no regional tea to speak of. I'm drinking tea because I like it, not for anyone else.

There are a couple of things - this is a fairly rural area and the water isn't always great. Has been better since they made some fixes to the water system, but I live right next to the (dammed) river where my water comes from, and about a mile up the road from the water plant that treats it, and it can be pretty unpleasant sometimes. I can remember times, especially in the winter, when the water was visibly cloudy for a minute or two every time I turned on the tap. My experience brewing tea with that water, straight up, is that it wasn't exactly amazing. And that when I would brew the same tea using the filtered water at work, it came out less unpleasant but also more bland. So, part of it is just trying to get to a point where I don't have to rely on what is not the best tea-brewing water to start with.

And despite my current eagerness, I resisted the idea that i need to care. I can remember reading about the importance of water and thinking, "Great, here's another variable to worry about." Granted, some of the teas were just not great on their own, and I also have to take into account my own developing levels of experience of time, where some issues were probably me instead of the tea or the water (or vessel, etc.). I did some trials with various bottled waters, just to see what they would do, and noted some general trends but also balked at the idea of buying branded, bottled water to brew tea.

And there are also teas I already own that aren't amazing (I am not of the sampler crowd - I find a tea that looks interesting, I buy a cake or a brick or, if loose leaf, 50-100 g. I would rather get consistent experience with a tea and really be able to understand what it was like and what worked and didn't work, than keep running into the end of 25 g samples). But I obviously have a vested interest in drinking them at some point and not letting them go to waste. I have a decent chunk of teas with redeeming characteristics but also a number of flaws. The money is spent, no matter how you slice it, so I guess i could chuck them.

But the other day I had a tea that was real cheap (357 g of mid-aged sheng puer for $60) and it was better than it had ever been before (for me) in large part because making myself play with these variables is teaching me about how to better adjust my brewing (and also giving me ideas of how the adjust my water and possibly keep a few varieties of custom water on hand for convenience). It wasn't great, but if I had to drink it every day I wouldn't complain. And that, to me, is a better outcome than declaring it a sunk cost and chucking it in the bin.

So, for me it has been a process, only the most recent stage of which is showing up here, and it's been partly about the water, partly about not giving up on tea I already own and partly about continuing to learn. One last thing I'll add, is that the more I do this, the more I feel like brewing a good cup of tea is a lot like cooking. We select the right tools, and those tools may be seasoned a certain way or constructed from a particular material that lends itself to the job. And then we add the components, and in tea the main ingredients in the recipe are the water and the tea. And just as I might fiddle with a recipe for a meal (or order in an exotic spice i can't get around here), I do the same with tea. And I'm starting to look at this, at least in part, more like a situation where my "spices" are powdered minerals and I select the right ones (or no ones) for the job on a case-by-case basis.

And, you know, I could probably get by with the local water if i had to. Buy tea that's good enough it doesn't matter, make sure it caters to my tastes and invest in expensive teaware (or just grandpa style everything and be done with it). But that doesn't seem like much fun

[teasecret]

Me and my water collaborator Arby will be on the Between Two Teapots livestream today at 5:30 eastern, 2:30 pacific time. https://youtu.be/adifAnrdBcc
It will be all about water for tea! If you can join, please ask questions if you want in the livestream chat. What's cool is we will all be using the same water recipe batch, and same tea. Hoping the feedback on the recipe is interesting, and that the conversation is a useful resource for people curious about how water works, what it is, and what to do with it.
If this is too promotional, mods please remove and I apologize. I think it'll be an interesting discussion though, as water for tea isn't talked about that much, especially between vendors and hobbyists.

[Victoria]

Me and my water collaborator Arby will be on the Between Two Teapots livestream today at 5:30 eastern, 2:30 pacific time. https://youtu.be/adifAnrdBcc
It will be all about water for tea! If you can join, please ask questions if you want in the livestream chat. What's cool is we will all be using the same water recipe batch, and same tea. Hoping the feedback on the recipe is interesting, and that the conversation is a useful resource for people curious about how water works, what it is, and what to do with it.
If this is too promotional, mods please remove and I apologize. I think it'll be an interesting discussion though, as water for tea isn't talked about that much, especially between vendors and hobbyists.

This is great. @teasecret, I hope you can share a synopsis, after the tasting, for those of us who are not able to attend .

[belewfripp]

Me and my water collaborator Arby will be on the Between Two Teapots livestream today at 5:30 eastern, 2:30 pacific time. https://youtu.be/adifAnrdBcc
It will be all about water for tea! If you can join, please ask questions if you want in the livestream chat. What's cool is we will all be using the same water recipe batch, and same tea. Hoping the feedback on the recipe is interesting, and that the conversation is a useful resource for people curious about how water works, what it is, and what to do with it.
If this is too promotional, mods please remove and I apologize. I think it'll be an interesting discussion though, as water for tea isn't talked about that much, especially between vendors and hobbyists.

This is great. teasecret, I hope you can share a synopsis, after the tasting, for those of us who are not able to attend 🍃.

I unfortunately missed this, but the full thing is available at that link on Youtube, so it can be watched whenever. I'll try and check it out tomorrow - will be interesting to see how Glen/CLT feels about the custom water.

[.m.]

Me and my water collaborator Arby will be on the Between Two Teapots livestream today at 5:30 eastern, 2:30 pacific time. https://youtu.be/adifAnrdBcc
It will be all about water for tea! If you can join, please ask questions if you want in the livestream chat. What's cool is we will all be using the same water recipe batch, and same tea. Hoping the feedback on the recipe is interesting, and that the conversation is a useful resource for people curious about how water works, what it is, and what to do with it.
If this is too promotional, mods please remove and I apologize. I think it'll be an interesting discussion though, as water for tea isn't talked about that much, especially between vendors and hobbyists.

Fascinating stuff and hugely inspiring. Thanks for sharing!

[belewfripp]

Me and my water collaborator Arby will be on the Between Two Teapots livestream today at 5:30 eastern, 2:30 pacific time. https://youtu.be/adifAnrdBcc
It will be all about water for tea! If you can join, please ask questions if you want in the livestream chat. What's cool is we will all be using the same water recipe batch, and same tea. Hoping the feedback on the recipe is interesting, and that the conversation is a useful resource for people curious about how water works, what it is, and what to do with it.
If this is too promotional, mods please remove and I apologize. I think it'll be an interesting discussion though, as water for tea isn't talked about that much, especially between vendors and hobbyists.

Watched the recorded video this AM and enjoyed it a lot - learned several new things, too, that I think will be helpful. I actually didn't know the Truth Serum was intended as a "reveal what's in the tea" kind of a thing rather than necessarily an attempt at a "good water for tea" - it explains a lot, though, as a number of my teas are not what i would call well-rounded, so it makes sense that it exaggerated so much of their character. The info about Brewer's Friend is also helpful - I've gone and tracked down their water calculator, which could be useful in evaluating what certain ratios of compounds would do (albeit from the specific perspective of beer, which is carbonated unlike tea). I also learned from their info that although Na mostly just makes water salty, too much in a water that is also high in sulfates can cause major unpleasant bitterness. This explains why the custom water I made without sulfates (used calcium chloride for my Ca) worked much better with added table salt, as opposed to the Truth Serum which wasn't as receptive to the added sodium.

Thanks to you and Arby for sharing!

[teasecret]

So happy with the feedback on the livestream! It seemed to clear up a lot and get to the important points and contexts of water and tea. A quick synopsis is up on the blog, but I'll make one here for this thread (in no particular order):

• I explained the seven major ions
• I talked about silica for a while
• I talked a bit about TDS and EC meters and what they really show
• Arby explained the purpose of Truth Serum, a more analytical water that extracts plenty of "information" from the tea with still reasonable mouthfeel and taste
• Glen noted that the taste of the tea was much stronger than with his usual water, with much more "sensory overload". This is an excellent piece of feedback, and shows that we can make waters that are more toned down for next time, but still use TS as a nice benchmark analytical water.
• We talked about aeration a little bit.
• We talked about the state of water in Yunnan and bottled water there.
• Arby pronounced Third Wave Water to be "trash" (which it is, especially for tea, because it has no alkalinity)
• We answered questions about water storage (airtight, cold, in glass is best and easiest)
• We answered a lot of other great questions too
• at some point I talked about different kinds of pure water, like RO and distilled, and I suggested that if you have a good RO machine/undersink system that makes good tasting pure water with a measured TDS of under 5 ppm, you're good to go. With distilled, you need to make sure you don't have a plastic taste from the bottle. This is why I distill in glass, though I don't recommend anyone do this.
• At the end, I suggested everyone try two waters in two glasses at 55 degrees F (12ºC) and really taste as if it were a tea session, because every water is different, and water is fun on its own too.

[belewfripp]

So, recently I've had a couple more tea shipments come in and have been trying to apply some of the things I've learned, water-wise. Instead of messing around with my own formulations, I thought maybe I'd try my hand at replicating some commercial brands, especially those I've read others speak favorably about. It's somewhat difficult because the conditions present in the natural world for the dissolution of certain minerals are not always easily-replicated in the home environment and some compounds found in nature may not be easily available to the home "water enthusiast".

A good example of this would be Vittel which, according to its website, has a ton of bicarbonate and calcium but no chloride and almost no sodium, so you can forget about using baking soda or calcium chloride to replicate. And if you mess around with an ionic calculator like those found at Brewer's Friend, you can see how the ratios needed are hard to come by with standard "home water adjustment" compounds. Calcium carbonate seems like it could be the answer, but it is mostly insoluble in ordinary water under ordinary conditions (hence my comment above about the "conditions present in the natural world" - the water at some point in its journey may start out rather acidic, or be subtly carbonated naturally, or pass through geologic areas of high pressure, all of which can help with the dissolution of chalk). One answer might be to use Sodastream to add some light carbonation, as I believe Empirical Tea talks about, but I don't have one so those experiments will have to wait. Vittel also has a low number of nitrates but a tiny amount of sodium nitrate can take care of that.

I did have some concerns about the amount of calcium and sulfates in Vittel, however, from a health perspective, as they claim 400 mg/L of sulfates and 240 mg/L of calcium. If you're susceptible to osteopathic complaints then the calcium may not be an issue, but having produced the antacid equivalent of milk-alkali syndrome within myself at one point when my reflux was poorly-managed, I'm leery of adding quite so much calcium to my diet given I easily hit my RDA each day. Drinking water so high in sulfates may also produce an unwanted laxative effect, although research done by the WHO suggests even higher levels than these produce no other serious effects (up to 1000-1200 mg/L) though the flavor is noted to worsen significantly past 500 mg/L.

Anyway...I decided to produce a replicant of Vittel, but with reduced sulfates and calcium, as well as replicants of Volvic and Iceland Spring. With the compounds I have on hand, there is no way to do Vittel without adding substantially more chloride and a little more sodium; in a later test, I hope to mitigate this by using calcium carbonate in place of baking soda/calcium chloride, but note the above on solubility: I've seen anything between 17 and 47 mg/L at standard atmospheric pressure for its solubility in water, and I would be adding 250 mg/L. So...we'll see. In the meantime, I am drinking a version that is still deriving most of its bicarbonate from baking soda and most of its Ca from calciums chloride and sulfate.

The results have been very good using this modified Vittel replicant for aged/roasted oolongs (including yancha, Dong Ding and an aged Fujian Sezhong I just got from Chawangshop that I am really liking a lot), sheng puer that has some age and some less-dry storage character and some other hei cha I've tried (some Bai Sha Xi qian liang as well as some Three Cranes liu bao). The one other thing I'll note is that the TDS is really high - we're talking about > 1000 mg/L. But the balance is really there - it's not too harsh, not too mellow. That said, I don't think i would try this on young sheng puer or green tea or young white tea except as an exercise in experimentation, as i think it would result in pretty unpleasant tea. But the next thing is to test the Volvic and Iceland Spring replicants on exactly those kinds of teas and see what happens.

As a final note, the local Target sells RO water so I've started using that as my base instead of distilled. I have to say, I think people look at me like I'm crazy when they seem me carting so much water around (of course, they're not wrong) and i'm in no hurry to explain it's just because i feel the need to make my own water for brewing tea, as I doubt that would enhance their estimate of my sanity

[Ethan Kurland]

... and some compounds found in nature may not be easily available to the home "water enthusiast".
..... I easily hit my RDA each day...
.... i'm in no hurry to explain it's just because i feel the need to make my own water for brewing tea, as I doubt that would enhance their estimate of my sanity

Interesting.
I wonder how many home water enthusiasts there are. Perhaps you should not be shy about it. You may find a water friend in your town.
What is the RDA you refer to? (Please, unless you don't feel like explaining.)
Last ?, is the ultimate goal to find a mix of additives so you can have a close to ideal water at home? (If RO water is your base, then you can put an RO system in your home.) Will it save you $ or trouble?

[belewfripp]

Interesting.
I wonder how many home water enthusiasts there are. Perhaps you should not be shy about it. You may find a water friend in your town.
What is the RDA you refer to? (Please, unless you don't feel like explaining.)
Last ?, is the ultimate goal to find a mix of additives so you can have a close to ideal water at home? (If RO water is your base, then you can put an RO system in your home.) Will it save you $ or trouble?

You're right, there may be more like me around here. It's a pretty rural/low population area, though, so it may take some serendipity.

And sorry for the unexplained acronym, I meant the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance of calcium. A guy my age has an RDA of 1000 mg of calcium daily, and while I'd have to drink a lot of high-calcium tea to get up where I was when I was chewing on 10-12 antacid tablets/day, I tend to err on the side of caution since being thirsty all the time (basically the body is trying to wash out the extra calcium) is no fun.

And my ultimate goal, I think, is to be able to judge each tea as best I can - in other words, that if I don't like it it's because I actually don't like the tea, rather than because I am using wildly unsuitable water or teaware; and likewise, to avoid missing out of teas I would like as a result of the same variables. I'm never going to truly achieve that, I don't think (for example, right now I'm tuning the water for the tea and wares I have; if I change my wares at some point/become afflicted with TAD, I may no longer be "correctly" attuned), but to have some "go-to" formulations that can operate as a base - maybe 3-4 formulae i think are useful - would save me time, sure. And then eventually having an RO system would probably save $ over the long haul vs buying it.

I do also like to investigate/learn about things just for the sake of learning, too, though. I think I recognized I don't know about that stuff (and haven't used chemistry in years) and just decided to try and do something about it.