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Comment by faizshah | Hacker News Reader

Does tap water really make that much of a difference? Anyone tried side by side?

That’s the only comment there I’m unsure about - bottled water is pretty much filtered tap water in most places. There’s direct spring water and rain water you can use - but they have varying minerals again, and then are you distilling water for pure H2O? I actually don’t know what the author means here.

I do concur with consistency and then changing only one variable at a time - beans, temps, ground amount & size, water type(?), extraction time / length / size. It’s probably something I haven’t paid any attention to and have my favourite spots to get coffee from.

Maybe it does, but personally, I get the most enjoyment out of coffee (or anything else) if I don't try to over-optimize. Good coffee in a french press with good enough water? Delicious!

And lets add delicious is very subjective and different folks have different standards and that is ok. But sometimes it’s good to try a different taste as we might like it more, one never knows... I personally am not interested into being a coffee purist because I cannot make much difference anyway, maybe its my taste buds, I don’t know but and find no reason to bother improving something I like good enough..

That really varies. Tap water in new york. yea I'd prolly go with that. Down in central Florida, the tap water tastes like a donkey's butthole (high sulfer content). I have to use bottled water down here to make a coffee thats remotely drinkable.

Yes! Water is the main ingredient, with that said tap water might be fine if you like the taste of your tap water. If the tap water tastes bad your coffee will not be as good as it could be.

Probably highly depends on where you are.

Tap water could also improve the taste the way NY tap water supposedly makes the pizza taste good.

The ny tap water story is just a story. You can get a water report on the tap water, and then distill water and add the minerals that will match. Beer brewers are more familiar with this, but it's not a super secret dark art.

It's key in Long Island bagels too

Perhaps the author lives in a place with bad tap water, like where you don’t drink it if you can avoid it. I’ve visited a few places like that. If the tap water is good to drink it will be good to make coffee with. Period.

Really depends on the tap water and might be mostly due to chlorine. As someone who drinks distilled water almost exclusively, it's surprising how apparent the chlorine is when I occasionally have to the drink tap water in my area. Chlorine is basic while coffee is acidic, and chlorine is just pretty reactive in general, so it would be surprising if chlorine didn't affect the flavor of and in a negative way.

I thought that distilled water is bad because there are no more micro elements?

Yes, we need minerals. Also, Chlorine will dissipate in a few hours or so. Put in a pitcher in the fridge for a cool drink any time.

You should already be getting your minerals from your diet, and food is an all around better way to get micronutrients in general. The mineral that's in the highest abundance in tap water is calcium, but there's better calcium to be found in broccoli. Same with things like magnesium... if one's health hinges on what's in their ingested water, their diet is terrible. There's nothing in water you can't get in greater quality and abundance in food.

There's this urban myth that distilled water pulls minerals out of your bones. Go find some high quality studies that demonstrate this incredibly flawed idea and get back to me. ;) Things like calcium in your bones aren't in a form that distilled water could dissolve away even if it wanted to (that's just not how things are working in the body though). The other theory is that the body would cannibalize calcium from the bones if there's no other calcium available; if you're getting even a modest amount of calcium from diet, which is easy to do with even the most unhealthy diets, this is never going to happen. If you are osteoporotic or are at risk of it, no amount of water is going to save you, and the evidence that mineral-free water would make it worse is nonexistent.

If it was dangerous to be consuming water devoid of minerals, the FDA would pull things like reverse-osmosis and ZeroWater filters off the shelves. But people keep repeating the evils of distilled water as if it's concluded fact when it's anything but.

Meanwhile, distillation and reverse-osmosis guarantee that heavy metals, microplastics, and many pharmaceuticals never make it into your drinking water in any meaningful amount. For some people it improves the flavor, as in my case, but others don't like it. But to anyone reading this, try drinking distilled exclusively for a few weeks and then drink tap water again. For me there's an obvious difference in smell and flavor that is tolerable but still off-putting.

They sell something called (no joke) third wave water, which are packets you add to distilled water

https://thirdwavewater.com/

"Profiles" product menu: Classic | Dark | Espresso

Here's some of their copy:

«Life is Too Short to Ruin Your Coffee with Bad Water» • Bad water destroys great coffee • Don't drink boring, flat coffee anymore • Starting your day right shouldn't be this difficult

«Protect Your Coffee Maker» • Stop ruining your coffee maker by causing lime scale buildup! • Do you have an espresso machine? • Third Wave Water has a water profile just for your needs

«Find Full Flavor» • Achieve Optimum Extraction and taste your coffee like the Roaster intended • Reduce Bitterness with all natural minerals • Balanced Water Chemistry to compliment your coffee (pH and kH)

«Brew Consistently» • Stop Chasing the Perfect Cup • Brew the same amazing cup of coffee every morning

Over 3 million gallons of coffee brewed.

"This coffee tasted 10X better with Third Wave Water! This stuff is the real deal! If you love coffee you'll love Third Wave Water!"

Also curious to know the answer to this. That's one I hadn't seen before. I'm guessing the author would recommend distilled?

Definitely not distilled. Most of the best coffee cities around the world have tap water with dissolved solids around 150ppm. If you’re in a place like mine in Phoenix, the tap water is like 500+ppm, so we use RO and demineralize with something like Third Wave Water (or you can make your own for cheap). It’s super fussy, but the taste difference is real.

I'm a novice coffee enthusiast, and I was blown away by the difference appropriate water made to the coffee. I am now "making" my own water by adding optimal mineral mixture to distilled water. The results are superior to those with tap water ("raw" and filtered) or pretty much any bottled water brand that I've tested.

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