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Comment by cromka | Hacker News Reader

Unrelated to water heaviness, while not the hardest, NYC tap water always tested sweet to me. I love that taste. It's amazing how used I got to it, to the point that drinking tap water anywhere else feels like some sort of punishment. It really made me realize after living outside of NYC how infrequently New Yorkers actually buy bottled water.

BTW: "New York City department of environmental protection is one of the 5 municipalities in the US that is allowed to supply unfiltered water based on their water quality, and the water is well known for its fresh taste (which is based on the absence of chlorine, a chemical often used for water treatment)."

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NYC tap water is astonishingly good. Not just better than you'd expect for a big dirty city, but better than you'd expect from a pristine mountain glacier in Norway. It's because of those giant underground tunnels that bring in the water fresh from far away in upstate NY. It's the best tap water I've tasted in the US.

I've always found Boston tap water to be excellent too. It comes from the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts, and is a claim-to-fame for Sam Adams beer. They even mimic the water in their breweries elsewhere.

In general mountain water I think is the best.

People don't really think about it this way, but New York is actually very close to two mountain ranges (the Taconic range of the Appalachians, and the Catskills). The Taconics are the dramatic peaks you see when crossing the Hudson a bit further north around Newburgh, and the Catskills are the much larger mountains slightly more inland.

I couldn't wrap my head around how such a polluted city could have such clean water and found this:

"New York City drinking water springs from 125 miles away in the Catskill Mountains -- 90% of the water comes from the Catskill/Delaware watershed, where waters from tributary rivers collect in 19 reservoirs. The other 10% comes from smaller watersheds in Westchester and Rye -- all of it traveling through vast underground aqueducts to supply the city’s residents."

Our water is so good! Isn’t that related to our bagel quality too?

and pizza crust!

and my axe!

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