Making tea with pure, distilled water
I’m going to say something here that is going to make many tea experts cringe; the best cup of tea is made with freshly produced distilled water! I’ve spent some time in the tea industry and I absolutely love it. If you think gourmet coffee drinkers have passion for their craft, you haven’t seen anything like tea connoisseurs. True tea experts know their stuff as much as a wine expert. Let me clarify this last statement a little though; they know their stuff about tea but the vast majority know very little about water. Since a cup of tea is 99% water, a lack of knowledge about water is a serious deficit.
A few years ago I ran an educational program at the World Tea Expo to bring the tea experts up to speed. Here are a couple points…
1) Water is water. It’s H2O. The only difference between the water that comes from your tap, the water in the sewers and sea water are the contaminants that are in the water. The contaminants that are in water can greatly affect the flavor, smell and healthfulness of your cup of tea. The purest water is rain water and fresh glacier melt (which is basically rainwater) and distilled water.
2) There are different types of contaminants that affect flavor and healthfulness differently.
3) Water quality can vary greatly from place to place and from moment to moment.
4) Even if the government says that your water is safe it may still have dangerous chemicals in it (even in surprisingly high amounts).
5) The minerals in water are not necessary to bring out the flavor of tea, and in fact they can interfere with the taste.
6) If you ask people what distilled water tastes like they base their knowledge on the only source of distilled water available to them, the old, stale distilled water that they get from plastic milk jugs. This is not what freshly produced distilled water tastes like because it’s has been left to sit in low grade plastic for months or even years. It may also have been left in sunlight which further degrades the plastic and adds a terrible taste.
7) You will be amazed at how clear and golden your tea is when made with distilled water.
8) The tea experts at the World Tea Expo were amazed at the clarity and excellent flavor produced by our water.
Remember that people drink tea for 1) the taste and 2) the health benefits. Nothing that you can do will have more of an impact on both of these points than by using only pure, fresh distilled water to make your tea!
To check out our web-site for tea shops (click here).
Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!
Thanks for your comment. Let us know if you want to see an article on a specific topic in the future.
Hi Glenn! We are forwarding your email about u-tube video and water purity. It will make a difference on how people perceive pure water and what they know about their drinking water.
As a tea expert, I could not have said it better than you. We always tell our customers when they purchase KEIKO premium organic Japanese teas to match it with Premium quality water and we mention your site. Thanks for all.
Sylvana
Great to hear from you Sylvana! Thanks for helping spread the word about pure water to our fellow tea drinkers!
Hi Glenn, The following storie that did happen nearly 25 years ago did push me to find some kind of explanation about the water quality for tea. So I was pleased to read your article!
One day, I was asking what type of tea was it such the falvour was nice.
Suprisingly, the old laydy owning the property in the middle of no where and far away from any city told me it was a normal regular tea. Then, I asked her why the taste was so different? She then told me that the water was coming from the rain water tank as the place was not connected to the water system!
The place was located at Garibaldi Rock in New South Wales Australia near Armidale.
Thanks for the story Toubeau. Rain water is free of many of the minerals and contaminants found in tap water. Continue your exploration of fantastic tea flavors with pure water!
Is it safe to drink tea made with distilled water?
Yes, in fact many high end tea shops use distilled water in their tea’s because it gives a consistent taste and allows the full taste of the tea to come through and not be hindered by other contaminants in the water.
What are your thoughts on distilled water absorbing more of the medicnal properties making stronger tea being that distilled water seems to leech a small amount of your own minerals from your body when drunk ALONE? Do you think it would make the tea more potent? Do you know of any studies on this if so? Thank you for your answer…
First of all, distilled water is great at making a more potent tea because it is such a good solvent. I do want to follow up with your other statement because drinking distilled water. Distilled water does not leach minerals from your body. It does a good job of helping clear out minerals your body is not using that build up outside the cells but it cannot leach them from your cells.