茶者水之神，水者茶之體。非真水莫顯其神，非精茶曷窺其體。
Tea is the spirit in water, while water is the body that carries tea.
Without pure water, the spirit will not show itself.
Likewise, without excellent tea, its body will be obscured.1
Zhāng Yuán 張源, Chá Lù 茶錄, Tea Notes, 1595
精茗蘊香，借水而發，無水不可與論茶也。
The fragrance of tea can only be uncovered by water.
We cannot talk about tea, without water.
Xǔ Cìshū 許次紓, Chá Shū 茶疏, Memorial on Tea, 1597
七分水，三分茶
Seven parts water, three parts tea.
(70% of a cup of tea comes from the water, 30% comes from the leaves)
Chinese saying
My experience with eastern tea has in recent years become inextricably entwined with the rediscovery of something unusually ordinary: water. Italy, the country where I moved my first steps toward an understanding of eastern tea, has both an interesting and a troubling statistic: it is the first country in Europe for consumption of bottled water per capita, and one of the first countries in the world2. A lack of environmental education may certainly be a factor behind this statistic. An argument could be made, however, about the unique quality of many of these waters. There is an enormous number of natural springs spread around the many Italian mountain ranges, the water of which is bottled and appreciated all over the country and abroad. And among those, alpine springs stand out, for a unique profile that is hardly found elsewhere. Even on the other side of those same mountains. Springs located in Piedmont are especially excellent: that is not surprising, as the best Italian wines come from the same region. Having spent a few years living in Bern, I remember clearly how special, rich, and informative Swiss waters were to drink. Tap water in Bern was amazing, and the tap water of Zurich is probably the best I have ever found in a large city (they even have a independent backup water system, that in peacetime serves the many city fountains). But it was arduous for me, in a supermarket, to find a Swiss bottled water having a TDS below 400 mg/L. I always was amazed about the enormous contrast with what I was used to, in the numbers that I read on the labels of mountain spring waters commercialized there. They went easily as high as 2000 mg/L . Of course, tea brewing was at first an absolute nightmare. My limescale-encrusted kettle was ultimately saved by a small Portuguese shop in my neighbourhood, selling wonderful waters such as Luso and Serra de Estrela, that are among the best waters for tea that I can remember, and blessed me with wonderful brewing sessions (I still can remember carrying on my bike crates and crates of them).
However, for as many cherished memories as bottled waters gave me, there always has been a latent uneasiness for all the thrown away plastic I amassed over the years. Tap water, even if thoroughly filtered, was not an option. All water filters I know are unselective – as they add very little and waters retain much of the characteristics of the source profile – and consistently took away all pleasure from my brewing. Hence, when I moved to Germany, about eight months ago, I resolved to find an alternative and lasting solution.
When I was looking into water remineralization, I found three main sources of inspiration: Tea Curious and Tea Secrets / Empirical Tea. Their recipes gave me invaluable insights into possible methods for obtaining a certain water profile. They taught me a lot, and most importantly they motivated me to learn more. However, the TDS of their waters was quite different from that of the waters I loved the most for brewing tea. For example, it was about 3 to 5 times higher than that of the water I used the most: Sant’Anna (22 mg/L of fixed residue). After much learning and after a great deal of trial & error in procuring the right tools for the job and learning how to use them, I went on to try their recipes extensively. Their waters are a force to be reckoned with, as they produce excellent tea. Nonetheless, most times, the liquor was different from what I was used to. There is a high degree of subjectivity involved in what I am writing: I hope that, eventually reading this, they will not mind, as I owe so much to their inquisitive work. There is one key assumption: from more than ten years of experience gathered drinking tea with others, I believe that what we look for in tea is utterly subjective, and memory and experience play a big role in it. Tea brewed with harder water tasted and smelled different to me, compared to what I was used to: that is primarily what led me to create my own recipes. If I had to describe what was different, it was like some of the characteristics of the teas felt more prominent, resonant or punchy, as if they were equalized, but at the same time something – especially retronasal aromas – remained hidden from me, as if it was missing. Some characteristics of specific teas, especially wūlóng and pǔ’ěr, kept feeling more balanced to me in the clarity of lighter waters. Sometimes, I could not shake the perception that there was also some kind of interference when using richer waters, conveyed by a measure of dry cloudiness in the brew, as if over the tea I could perceive the taste of the water as a separated element. The second effect reminded me of the experience that I had brewing tea with hard Swiss waters, only it was a hundredfold less pronounced. These observations, of course, varied much between recipes. I will attempt at formulating a hypothesis for the issue, later in the article. Nonetheless, again I emphasize that at such low TDSs, what water is best suited for brewing tea is almost certainly a matter of opinion. It also depends much on the tea. I regularly use Truth Serum, the recent Complex Syrup, or some slightly modified version of them, especially for cupping. As many may find some of the recipes from the mentioned sources more suited to their taste than mines, I invite you to try them. I also recommend checking out the blogs of Empirical Tea, Tea Secrets and Tea Curious, if you are interested in the topic of water for tea.
Since the beginning, my goal was to re-create the profile of the waters that I loved. I had been collecting data from labels of Italian and foreign waters for almost five years, and I had all the information I needed to begin experimentation.
The recipes that came out of that process are an attempt at bringing together, into three diverse balances, the best characteristics of seven waters that I enjoyed particularly. My inspirations are high altitude Italian alpine springs: Sant’Anna (Vinadio), Lurisia (M. Pigna), Sorgente Alba (Piccole Dolomiti), Pura di roccia (Valle dell’Elvo), Levico (Valsugana), Valverde (M. Rosa), and Etrusca (upper Val Bormida). After all, as Lù Yǔ wrote: «其山水，揀乳泉石地慢流者上» «The best spring water flows slowly over stone pools on a pristine mountain. »3.
As I already stated, there is a fundamental degree of arbitrariness and subjectivity in my preference for extremely light water, let’s say, with a TDS not higher than 60 mg/L. But if there may be one rational argument that I could attempt to bring forward as a hypothesis, it would be the phenomenon of tea creaming. Its merit is not only having the potential to provide a scientific background to my preference, but more importantly, it offers me a way to express some of the things I perceive in waters, as the TDS rises away from my personal preferential baseline.
The formation of tea cream occurs when components of tea – namely catechins and other flavonoids, proteins, and carbohydrates – aggregate with other substances – especially calcium and methylxanthines (among which is caffeine) – into bigger and often insoluble molecules, that are hardly perceivable by our senses or that negatively influence the colour and turbidity of the infusion, and its flavour. It is important to note that these aggregates are often actually not visually apparent, nor easy to identify. We could speculate that, if hard water had a stronger intrinsic taste, that could conceal, alter or cloud tea. But through the mechanism of tea creaming, it might also – more directly – deprive the tea of some of its flavour-related and aromatic compounds by precipitation, significantly lowering the number of “tasty” molecules that we can perceive. Of course, within the extremely limited range of hardnesses we examine, this effect can only be minimal. This phenomenon is probably related with the reported counter-intuitive effect that there is a decrease in the extraction of many components of tea, as the TDS of water raises, that may also have something to do with the intake of calcium by the tea leaf. But much research is still needed on these issues. 4-16
I named my recipes with both a Western and an Eastern title. The Western one, is a homage to Sant’Anna water – that has been with me from the onset of my infatuation for eastern tea – and to a nice 1981 British TV series that I recently had the pleasure to discover thanks to a dear friend: Brideshead Revisited. The Eastern names, they are a homage to the Chinese tea culture this blog is dedicated to, and to traditional Chinese culture in general.
It must be noted that Sant’Anna water, among others, has been the one most recommended to me by both mentors I was lucky enough to meet in the practice of eastern tea: Nicoletta Tul and Vivian Zhang. I do not believe in coincidences.
But without further ado, let us delve into understanding how water remineralization works.
The Sant’Anna™ Revisited recipes
Inspired by the tea-caring clarity of Italian high-altitude alpine springs, like Sant’Anna (Vinadio), Lurisia (M. Pigna), Sorgente Alba (Piccole Dolomiti), Pura di roccia (Valle dell’Elvo), Levico (Valsugana), Valverde (M. Rosa), and Etrusca (upper Val Bormida).
Water Recipe Calculator
Would you like to try and re-create or even improve the profile of your favourite mineral water, to spare the world of some extra plastic? Do you think you are ready to experiment with your own recipe? This may be a good place to start.
About the costs of remineralizing purified water for tea.
Is water remineralization economically sustainable, for an everyday use?
Remineralizing your water is only economically convenient over the long run (at least a year), hence it requires a commitment, as the initial set-up cost is fairly high. However, you should consider that – excluding of course tap water and other uncritical methods of water purification (water filters), and excluding the extremely lucky chance that you may have direct access to a spring water that is properly suited for tea brewing – the only alternative to water remineralization for the brewing of high quality tea is bottled water. The latter is less environmentally sustainable, and it can be quite expensive, depending on the country you live in. Because of specific legislation, in Italy bottled water is cheap: 6*1.5 litre bottles of Sant’Anna cost around 1.50 €. On the contrary, in Germany, were I am living at the moment, 6*1.5 litre bottles of Volvic can cost from 5 up to 6.50 €. The best water for tea that I could find here at the moment is Black Forest, that costs around 4-5 € for 6*1 litre bottles. Now, a good RO system in Europe can cost from 250 to 500 Euros in average, but you can find cheaper options (initially, you could even buy double-distilled water, for testing). It is important to stress that the usefulness of an RO system in not limited to improving your tea brewing. Reverse Osmosis is a very common home appliance that will provide you with excellent water for any use – from drinking to cooking to cleaning – by filtering >99% of unhealthy metals and pollutants from it. If you are thorough, the cost for the recommended tools of this guide can amount from around 200, up to 450 Euros, depending on your choices (you could probably save considerably by looking outside of Amazon). Finally, the first batch of all the salts used in my recipes, amounts from around 60 up to 120 Euros in Germany (it will last you for a very long time). These are the initial costs. If you are starting from scratch, it is no pocket change.
What makes this method economically very convenient over time, is that beside this inaugural steep investment, maintenance and filters of a good RO system are quite inexpensive, for the considerable amount of water they can filter, and they do not need to be changed often (normally every 3 to 6 months). And the cost of the salts is ridiculously low, since we only need a fraction of a gram per batch of water produced. Therefore, everything else, you only need to buy una tantum, and if it is of good quality and if you treat it well, it will last you a lifetime.
If like me, you drink about 3 litres of tea per day… you should probably cut that caffeine out, but you will offset the costs quite rapidly. Considering a healthier 1,5–2 litres per person per day, with the average price tag per bottle of Germany, the costs should be amortized over a period ranging from less than 1 year to up to 3 years. After that, you should start saving quite a lot. In Italy, it would take much more, unfortunately… As for the US, honestly I have no idea. If you care to calculate that, please drop a comment below.
In short, it is a one-time investment. If you plan to drink good tea for the rest of your natural life, like I do, then over time you should save quite a great deal, compared with the cost of brewing with most bottled waters. At the same time, improving considerably the quality of your brews and of your home water intake in general, while lowering the environmental impact of your tea drinking habits.
About the environmental aspects of our water sourcing habits.
On one hand, I believe that the model of the green consumer can develop, under certain circumstances, into a dangerous myth. That is because it can lead to self-complacency, providing someone with a misleading perception of control over a problem that actually keeps worsening on a global scale. The problem is eloquently illustrated by this article (original is in Dutch): https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.groene.nl%2Fartikel%2Fde-mythe-van-de-groene-consument. In other words, I think we should focus our time and energy to be more informed and demanding citizens, rather than better consumers.
On the other hand, I do believe that a non-rigid awareness of the environmental impact of our daily habits could give the world more time to find the determination to adopt more effective and globalized solutions. So, as long as a greener lifestyle does not make us blind to the big picture, then why not adopting it?
In this regard, I hope this water remineralization guide may accommodate the two prerequisites of true sustainability, being economically affordable (over the long run) and practically feasible. Please let me know if you think it does not.
That being said, if you happen to find a bottled water with an interesting profile, please try it. Please experiment brewing some teas you know well with it, even if it is just with a few bottles. That is how I learned the most interesting things about what water can do to tea.
THANKS:
Many sincere thanks go to those who provided inputs and opinions, making this project possible.
Andrea Ghion, who was there from the beginning. Harald Halka, who had the kindness to provide meticulous and essential help to an amateur hydrochemist like me. Nicoletta Tul, Atilio Reyes Romero, Marta Nazzari, Mauro Puppett, Emanuele Dente, Maria Chiara De Simone, Tomaso Bisol.
For the much needed inspiration & for many ideas, Max & Arby from Empirical Tea / Tea Secrets and Rie & Steven from Tea Curious.
REFERENCES
- Translated by Aaron Fisher
- Per capita consumption of bottled water in Europe in 2019, by country – Statista.com
- Lù Yǔ 陸羽, Chá Jīng 茶經, The Classic of Tea (760-762)
- Murugesh, C. S., Manoj, J. B., Haware, D. J., Ravi, R., & Subramanian, R. (2017). Influence of water quality on nutritional and sensory characteristics of green tea infusion. Journal of food process engineering, 40(5), e12532.
- Spiro, M., & Jaganyi, D. (1993). What causes scum on tea?. Nature, 364(6438), 581-581.
- Mossion, A., Potin-Gautier, M., Delerue, S., Le Hécho, I., & Behra, P. (2008). Effect of water composition on aluminium, calcium and organic carbon extraction in tea infusions. Food Chemistry, 106(4), 1467-1475.
- XU, Y. Q., & YIN, J. F. (2010). Study on the characteristics of cream formation in green tea infusion. Journal of Tea Science, 527-532.
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- Cabrera, M., Taher, F., Llantada, A., Do, Q., Sapp, T., & Sommerhalter, M. (2021). Effect of Water Hardness on Catechin and Caffeine Content in Green Tea Infusions. Molecules, 26(12), 3485.
- Xu, Y. Q., Hu, X. F., Tang, P., Jiang, Y. W., Yuan, H. B., Du, Q. Z., & Yin, J. F. (2015). The major factors influencing the formation of sediments in reconstituted green tea infusion. Food chemistry, 172, 831-835.
- Jöbstl, E., Fairclough, J. P. A., Davies, A. P., & Williamson, M. P. (2005). Creaming in black tea. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 53(20), 7997-8002.
- Yin, J. F., Xu, Y. Q., Yuan, H. B., Luo, L. X., & Qian, X. J. (2009). Cream formation and main chemical components of green tea infusions processed from different parts of new shoots. Food Chemistry, 114(2), 665-670.
- Xu, Y. Q., Hu, X. F., Tang, P., Jiang, Y. W., Yuan, H. B., Du, Q. Z., & Yin, J. F. (2015). The major factors influencing the formation of sediments in reconstituted green tea infusion. Food chemistry, 172, 831-835.
- Liang, Y., & Xu, Y. (2001). Effect of pH on cream particle formation and solids extraction yield of black tea. Food Chemistry, 74(2), 155-160.
- Perchè la durezza dell’acqua influisce sulla qualità dell’infuso – Quello che mi passa per la tazza, by Domenico Cavasso