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Thursday, 25 November 2010

delicate tea with undelicate water?

Mentioned several days ago that I'd be hosting a tea tasting, and now I have a bit of a dilemma I need your help with. Have read again and again that one should filter the water before brewing tea. Almost always they say that with black tea it really doesn't matter, and that normally helps ease my conscience as I procrastinate about getting a water filtration device.

But Darjeeling isn't any normal black tea. The taste is truly delicate and one must do everything possible to allow that taste to come through. And I'm thinking that doing everything possible means filtering the water before serving Darjeeling at a tea tasting.

It's not even normal tap water either. To make matters worse, Munich's water is full of chalk. It's some of the best water in Europe, but the coil on the electric kettle is quickly caked in white, milky sediment. Although the water's safe, it's hard and chalky.

So my question for you is:

Do you filter the water before you brew up?

2 comments:

  1. Usually not but in some places I go to, they do so when I use their water to make tea, it is filtered.

    Either way, I am not sure you would remove all of the chalk and stuff by filtering (unless you have a good one).

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  2. The simple answer to that is, no, I don't. The water where I live is very soft but I don't know if that is an advantage or not.

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