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Comment by sarnowski | Hacker News Reader

Living in Germany/Berlin and can confirm. Our tap water is excellent and is way cleaner than all bottled water you can buy. Keep in mind, bottled water is also kept around way longer and has the time to „breed“. In tests, the tap water is consistently less contaminated. I recommend everyone to just stick to it.

As an anecdote: you can let your tap water be tested for free if you have a newborn to ensure and confirm that you can use it for baby food without doubt.

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Having spent 5 months in Germany recently I can say without a doubt the entire food chain in that nation is something I miss. Tap water tasted great and the food was super high quality.

tasted gross in Berlin this summer, spent 2 months there.

There are still flats with lead pipes in Germany.

Berlin, of course, has a website in English language with all the information regarding tap water:

https://www.bwb.de/en/index.php

UK as well has generally excellent tap water and everywhere I’ve lived it had never tasted any different to bottled water.

That said I’ve never been a fan of bottle water anyway, I’ve always preferred what my Nan used to call ‘council pop’ (tap water).

Is Berlin (as opposed to other areas of Germany) culturally ok with drinking tap water?

I'd say all of Germany is culturally very much ok with drinking tap water, Berlin not much more or less than other regions. People who drink bottled water here don't usually do it because they think it's "better" than tap water, it's either because of convenience when you're not home or because they like carbonated water (which is very popular in Germany).

Or because the tap water just doesn't really taste that good. The one coming out of my line just tastes too "metalic", I often tried getting over it but I just can't.

Have you tried a water filter?

A lot of the buildings in Berlin have very old pipes and while the water to the building is alright, we (in Berlin) have to rely mainly on glass bottles of water (bismark) as if you don’t run the taps enough there’s a nice colour that comes out...

I've lived in a few places in Berlin over the years, I've never seen anything but nice clear water come out of the tap (whether at my place or friend's flats). Granted, it's hard water (lots of calcium) but other than that it's perfectly fine. Pipes as bad as you're describing definitely exist but I'd say they're the exception, not the rule.

If there's a lot of calcium old pipes will have nice protection layer, no?

Exactly, and the older the pipe, the thicker the layer.

I was in Berlin this summer for 2 months (Neukolln), in 3 different airbnbs and the water was not tasty, and was quite bitter. Very different compared to Swedish or Austrian or even Italian (florence) water.

I’m no expert in Germany but found it very difficult to get tap water at any restaurants there.

> you can let your tap water be tested for free if you have a newborn to ensure and confirm that you can use it for baby food without doubt.

Without doubt? We just found out that they are microplastics in bottled water, how can you be sure there aren't things in tap water that we haven't discovered yet?

There is microshrimp in NYC water. We love it.

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