@xavier, gosh minerals…I never think about that. All our drinking water is filtered, we have an inbuilt system for that. I’ve heard Europeans say that the tea never tastes the same in America, but I don’t know quite what that means. We have added fluoride here, maybe that makes a difference? I don’t use bottled water because it would be too pricy. What do you do?

Adelaide has truly awful water, it is legendary. Many people use rainwater or have filters on their mains taps (or both) . One of the big problems here is that you go out for a cuppa and get a cup of fluoride and cloramide.

Of course, one of the things that you really need to be careful about is the dihydrogen monoxide content in your tea. It’s probably the most important thing to consider, generally I prefer mine to be purer and cleaner, even though it is known to be dangerous…

Ha ha, that was pretty funny @peter. Unless you’re a dj and you’re out of a job now.

It depends on the tea (some are “better” with more minerals, others not), the available water quality and of course personal preferences and money.

Chinese tea masters usually prefer water of the same region the tea was grown in. But that would be a bit  hard to get.

I usually use tap water and sometimes I filter it (still experimenting). I taste the difference, but my tap water has a relative low quality compared to the average Dutch tap water quality which is high.

But I also noticed that I prefer some teas made with filtered water and others with tap water. I just should make more notes to remember which combines best with which.

Spring water is your best choice. You want a neutral ph level. Your second best choice is to get filtered water. A britta filter or similar kind works just fine. Just get a basic kind not one loaded up with minerals. However, you want to make sure the water is not sitting for too long and starts to lose its oxygen whether you get bottled water or use filtered water. This will negatively impact the quality of the water.

Re: making sure the water doesn’t sit too long, I agree @johndelaney. I love our Breville which allows me to set the tea to be ready when I wake up in the morning. However, the water is added the night before, so it is not freshly poured water. Sadly I can’t see a work-around. It’s either that, or no tea at the ready in the morning.

Hard water prevents certain tea flavors from being released from the leaves; delicate teas often taste bland when prepared in hard water. On the other hand, unpleasantly funky teas will often improve, because not only are good flavors trapped, but also bad flavors. This is the reason why tea blenders used to have specific “hard water” blends.

It also depends on how you plan to treat the tea. In antiquity, hard water (such as from stalactite springs) was highly praised by tea masters like Lu Yu. This was, in part, because of the fairly brutal treatment the tea went through, with the roasting, powdering, etc. Any unpleasant flavors that would normally be released through harsh treatment were more likely to remain in the leaves when using hard water.