Just to entertain you all - here is how serious Russian tea-lovers are about
water: http://t.volny.edu/water.xls This table is the chemical composition
and overall tea-brewing quality of 27 different bottled waters sold in
Russia. The thread about tea brewing qualities of these waters is couple of
hundreds pages long.
Their site http://tea.volny.edu is IMHO one of the absolute best in the
world and has an English version too. Because I like it so much, I publish
my tea stories in Russian there once in a while.

Sasha.

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:02:54 GMT
"Alex Chaihorsky" > wrote:

> Just to entertain you all - here is how serious Russian tea-lovers are
> about water: http://t.volny.edu/water.xls This table is the chemical
> composition and overall tea-brewing quality of 27 different bottled
> waters sold in Russia. The thread about tea brewing qualities of these
> waters is couple of hundreds pages long.
> Their site http://tea.volny.edu is IMHO one of the absolute best in the
> world and has an English version too. Because I like it so much, I
> publish my tea stories in Russian there once in a while.


I have water quality test strips for my aquarium, and they always hit
their expiration date long before i've used all of them, so i went ahead
and ran some tests.

I only tested five or six bottled waters. They ranged in ph from about
6 to about 8.5. the only other thing i paid any attention to was the
hardness, which was typically in line with the ph.

Settled on one that fell around 7. Arrowhead is the brand name on it,
fwiw. I have no idea how widely available that is.

I found that the very acid, very soft water made tea that was
excessively tannic and quite pale. The very basic, very hard water made tea
that tasted a little weak, though quite drinkable, and coated my glassware
with light brown crud. And built up pearly white scale pretty quickly in
the kettle - so I'm guessing the hardness was mainly calcium. (Magnesium is
the other primary mineral in water hardness, makes the scale yellowish)

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:02:54 GMT
"Alex Chaihorsky" > wrote:

> Just to entertain you all - here is how serious Russian tea-lovers are
> about water: http://t.volny.edu/water.xls This table is the chemical
> composition and overall tea-brewing quality of 27 different bottled
> waters sold in Russia. The thread about tea brewing qualities of these
> waters is couple of hundreds pages long.
> Their site http://tea.volny.edu is IMHO one of the absolute best in the
> world and has an English version too. Because I like it so much, I
> publish my tea stories in Russian there once in a while.


I have water quality test strips for my aquarium, and they always hit
their expiration date long before i've used all of them, so i went ahead
and ran some tests.

I only tested five or six bottled waters. They ranged in ph from about
6 to about 8.5. the only other thing i paid any attention to was the
hardness, which was typically in line with the ph.

Settled on one that fell around 7. Arrowhead is the brand name on it,
fwiw. I have no idea how widely available that is.

I found that the very acid, very soft water made tea that was
excessively tannic and quite pale. The very basic, very hard water made tea
that tasted a little weak, though quite drinkable, and coated my glassware
with light brown crud. And built up pearly white scale pretty quickly in
the kettle - so I'm guessing the hardness was mainly calcium. (Magnesium is
the other primary mineral in water hardness, makes the scale yellowish)

The Chinese say that the water for tea should not be taken too close to the
source of the brook where its too much yan, no too far downstream where its
too much yin. To a geochemist like me that translates to neutral pH and not
too soft. While working as a field geologist in high mountain ranges I
noticed that the water from brooks that originates from glaciers gains some
mineral content right at the tip of the ice tongue which tells me that the
majority of the water volume comes from underground morena much higher
upslope where it has a good chance to gain mineral content. That explains
how the glacier streams water never tastes dull as water melted from the ice
itself. The best tea water is glacier stream water taken about a mile
downstream if the slope is still steep and the water runs fast or 100-200
yards if it slows down considerably. As soon as the stream bed stones gain
even a little algae the quality of the water quickly gets lower.

Or so it seem.

Sasha.


"Eric Jorgensen" > wrote in message
news:20050411223108.4b0a7d09@wafer...
> On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:02:54 GMT
> "Alex Chaihorsky" > wrote:
>
>> Just to entertain you all - here is how serious Russian tea-lovers are
>> about water: http://t.volny.edu/water.xls This table is the chemical
>> composition and overall tea-brewing quality of 27 different bottled
>> waters sold in Russia. The thread about tea brewing qualities of these
>> waters is couple of hundreds pages long.
>> Their site http://tea.volny.edu is IMHO one of the absolute best in the
>> world and has an English version too. Because I like it so much, I
>> publish my tea stories in Russian there once in a while.
>
>
> I have water quality test strips for my aquarium, and they always hit
> their expiration date long before i've used all of them, so i went ahead
> and ran some tests.
>
> I only tested five or six bottled waters. They ranged in ph from about
> 6 to about 8.5. the only other thing i paid any attention to was the
> hardness, which was typically in line with the ph.
>
> Settled on one that fell around 7. Arrowhead is the brand name on it,
> fwiw. I have no idea how widely available that is.
>
> I found that the very acid, very soft water made tea that was
> excessively tannic and quite pale. The very basic, very hard water made
> tea
> that tasted a little weak, though quite drinkable, and coated my glassware
> with light brown crud. And built up pearly white scale pretty quickly in
> the kettle - so I'm guessing the hardness was mainly calcium. (Magnesium
> is
> the other primary mineral in water hardness, makes the scale yellowish)
>

The Chinese say that the water for tea should not be taken too close to the
source of the brook where its too much yan, no too far downstream where its
too much yin. To a geochemist like me that translates to neutral pH and not
too soft. While working as a field geologist in high mountain ranges I
noticed that the water from brooks that originates from glaciers gains some
mineral content right at the tip of the ice tongue which tells me that the
majority of the water volume comes from underground morena much higher
upslope where it has a good chance to gain mineral content. That explains
how the glacier streams water never tastes dull as water melted from the ice
itself. The best tea water is glacier stream water taken about a mile
downstream if the slope is still steep and the water runs fast or 100-200
yards if it slows down considerably. As soon as the stream bed stones gain
even a little algae the quality of the water quickly gets lower.

Or so it seem.

Sasha.


"Eric Jorgensen" > wrote in message
news:20050411223108.4b0a7d09@wafer...
> On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:02:54 GMT
> "Alex Chaihorsky" > wrote:
>
>> Just to entertain you all - here is how serious Russian tea-lovers are
>> about water: http://t.volny.edu/water.xls This table is the chemical
>> composition and overall tea-brewing quality of 27 different bottled
>> waters sold in Russia. The thread about tea brewing qualities of these
>> waters is couple of hundreds pages long.
>> Their site http://tea.volny.edu is IMHO one of the absolute best in the
>> world and has an English version too. Because I like it so much, I
>> publish my tea stories in Russian there once in a while.
>
>
> I have water quality test strips for my aquarium, and they always hit
> their expiration date long before i've used all of them, so i went ahead
> and ran some tests.
>
> I only tested five or six bottled waters. They ranged in ph from about
> 6 to about 8.5. the only other thing i paid any attention to was the
> hardness, which was typically in line with the ph.
>
> Settled on one that fell around 7. Arrowhead is the brand name on it,
> fwiw. I have no idea how widely available that is.
>
> I found that the very acid, very soft water made tea that was
> excessively tannic and quite pale. The very basic, very hard water made
> tea
> that tasted a little weak, though quite drinkable, and coated my glassware
> with light brown crud. And built up pearly white scale pretty quickly in
> the kettle - so I'm guessing the hardness was mainly calcium. (Magnesium
> is
> the other primary mineral in water hardness, makes the scale yellowish)
>

The Chinese say that the water for tea should not be taken too close to the
source of the brook where its too much yan, no too far downstream where its
too much yin. To a geochemist like me that translates to neutral pH and not
too soft. While working as a field geologist in high mountain ranges I
noticed that the water from brooks that originates from glaciers gains some
mineral content right at the tip of the ice tongue which tells me that the
majority of the water volume comes from underground morena much higher
upslope where it has a good chance to gain mineral content. That explains
how the glacier streams water never tastes dull as water melted from the ice
itself. The best tea water is glacier stream water taken about a mile
downstream if the slope is still steep and the water runs fast or 100-200
yards if it slows down considerably. As soon as the stream bed stones gain
even a little algae the quality of the water quickly gets lower.

Or so it seem.

Sasha.


"Eric Jorgensen" > wrote in message
news:20050411223108.4b0a7d09@wafer...
> On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:02:54 GMT
> "Alex Chaihorsky" > wrote:
>
>> Just to entertain you all - here is how serious Russian tea-lovers are
>> about water: http://t.volny.edu/water.xls This table is the chemical
>> composition and overall tea-brewing quality of 27 different bottled
>> waters sold in Russia. The thread about tea brewing qualities of these
>> waters is couple of hundreds pages long.
>> Their site http://tea.volny.edu is IMHO one of the absolute best in the
>> world and has an English version too. Because I like it so much, I
>> publish my tea stories in Russian there once in a while.
>
>
> I have water quality test strips for my aquarium, and they always hit
> their expiration date long before i've used all of them, so i went ahead
> and ran some tests.
>
> I only tested five or six bottled waters. They ranged in ph from about
> 6 to about 8.5. the only other thing i paid any attention to was the
> hardness, which was typically in line with the ph.
>
> Settled on one that fell around 7. Arrowhead is the brand name on it,
> fwiw. I have no idea how widely available that is.
>
> I found that the very acid, very soft water made tea that was
> excessively tannic and quite pale. The very basic, very hard water made
> tea
> that tasted a little weak, though quite drinkable, and coated my glassware
> with light brown crud. And built up pearly white scale pretty quickly in
> the kettle - so I'm guessing the hardness was mainly calcium. (Magnesium
> is
> the other primary mineral in water hardness, makes the scale yellowish)
>

"Alex Chaihorsky" > writes:

> Just to entertain you all - here is how serious Russian tea-lovers are about
> water: http://t.volny.edu/water.xls This table is the chemical composition
> and overall tea-brewing quality of 27 different bottled waters sold in
> Russia. The thread about tea brewing qualities of these waters is couple of
> hundreds pages long.
> Their site http://tea.volny.edu is IMHO one of the absolute best in the
> world and has an English version too.

Do you have a URL for the English version?

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

> Do you have a URL for the English version?
>
> /Lew
> ---

http://teatips.info/

Sasha.

> Do you have a URL for the English version?
>
> /Lew
> ---

http://teatips.info/

Sasha.

> Do you have a URL for the English version?
>
> /Lew
> ---

http://teatips.info/

Sasha.