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Comment by insanitybit | Hacker News Reader

If I'm making tea I do. I can't imagine that lead is boiling off...

You should switch to using the cold water tap to fill your kettle! Also, when you see what kind of build up can happen in a hot water heater, you'll definitely want to avoid drinking from the hot water tap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=207s

That's not lead, that's limescale[1]. Dissolved limestone is carried through the pipes, and settles out as scale.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limescale

Yes, I didn't say it was lead. It is just a dirty, unpleasant container. Not where you want to get your drinking water, especially for tea.

It isn't just limescale in your hot water heater, it is whatever your water pipe carries in and accumulates in the tank. We lived at the beach and had to flush sand out every couple years.

Your cold water carries the same junk into your tea. It’s just missing the settling tank that would separate it out.

It is potentially a decade of accumulated junk in the hot water heater. If you aren't able to taste the difference, the data backs up the issue with drinking hot water.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html

https://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/02/26/lead-hot-water-issue...

https://www.denverwater.org/tap/psa-dont-drink-or-cook-with-...

Make up your mind, does it come in or go out of the hot water tank?

It can’t both accumulate and leave at the same time.

False assumption it needs to accumulate and leave at the same time.

That's a terrible way to make tea, fwiw.

I want to stress that I actually don't give a shit (I am not that into tea, I just drink it sometimes, it's not a big deal to me), but I am curious as to why.

Unrelated to the tea, but cold water is somewhat safer to drink than water coming from your boiler, that's why.

IDK, they said "a terrible way to make tea", I'm assuming there's some sorta tea lore that I'm unaware of

There are tea drinkers that believe very strongly in using water that isn't "stale" (eg, leftover in the kettle from the last time). Presumably water from the hot water tap would be stale for similar reasons.

I think the theory is that "stale" water lacks sufficient oxygen for tea brewing to fully brew or something.

It's not O2: if you let water sit out, various things (including CO2) dissolve in it, making it slightly acidic and taste stale.

I'm not a big tea drinker, but I am definitely not a super fan of water that's been sitting out a day. There's not been time for stuff to grow in it yet, but it still tastes gross.

That makes sense.

Fill a cup with cool water and take a sip before you go to sleep. Tastes great, right? Taste it eight hours later when you get up in the morning. It takes on an acrid taste.

It's not hot enough. Black tea is usually brewed with boiling hot water around 95 - 100 °C. Green tea is usually brewed a bit lower than that at around 80 °C. But the domestic hot water supply is typically around 50 °C, to prevent burns. It'll be very weak, and probably taste a bit off. Same with coffee, or anything else that requires boiling hot water.

I don't drink tea made from hot water. I put hot water into a pot and heat it up further.

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