I just drink the tap water. It's ok. Letting it sit for a few hours to let the chlorine escape helps the taste. I haven't thought those pitchers to be any good but who knows. If I really wanted to filter the water, I'd look at an MSR gravity filter or similar.
An absurd amalgamation of a 4 part while house filter, a softener, and an under sink reverse osmosis thing for drinking water.
The water here has enough dissolved solids in it that before I put in that stuff if the pipes got a pinhole leak in them it would seal itself within a couple hours at the expense of everything having a white crust on it.
I'm based in London, the water is really hard and drinking water, and more importantly tea is so much better with any sort of filtration.
I use a refillable filter called Phox—they're a smaller UK brand that offers three types of refills: one that just filters, one that filters and softens (my choice), and one called the Alkaline pack which maintains calcium and adds magnesium and ups the pH.
I used to use Brita filters and the amount of plastic waste would really bug me. I'd definitely get a filtration system installed if I owned my own home but Phox feels like a good solution in the meantime.
...not that owning my own place in London is going to happen, but a poor little wage slave can dream.
Zerowater. It’s alright. I like the taste, but the replacement filters are pretty expensive.
We had some construction a few years back where they replaced the water pipes across our area of the city. For about two years while the project was going on, our water would randomly turn brown or orange for days… we used to drink straight tap water, but not any more.
I used to use them. They're cheapest if you order directly from their website in bulk. And subscribe to their emails. I think around January and February they usually have like 10 for 120$ or something.
Yup agreed. I’ve tried brita and pur, and pur tastes the closest to NYC water to me, which is my benchmark for the best-tasting water. Definitely not as good as NYC, but closest I’ve come.
I don’t drink water. I fill my tea kettle from the tap, as chlorine evaporates rapidly and completely from hot water. I usually drink two pints this way (one coffee and one herbal tea), and I drink a can of fizzy water at lunch, and maybe a beer with dinner.
I use Brita, but I'm absolutely disappointed with it and I don't even know if it's worth for me to waste my money on it.
The other day there was yellow water coming from the tap, probably it has to do something with the construction outside. But I only noticed it while filling up my Brita jug, and guess what - it remained yellow after filtering it. I mean, no change at all. Not even slightly clearer, no. The same. And I use original Brita cartridges which are expensive af. I was in two weeks of usage that time, so the cartridge wasn't even near the end of its lifecycle.
The other part of my disappointment is that these Brita jugs are extremely brittle. The first one cracked on the bottom after one year, the second one cracked at two places also after one year (although the second one isn't leaking yet). And I have no idea why they crack so easily, it's not like I'm slamming them to the kitchen counter in any way. I'm actually quite careful with it, knowing how poor quality it is. Absolute garbage.
So I'm also seeking for a high quality brand, but I'm not ready for those reverse osmosis things, just a pitcher.
I've tried a few, Zerowater, Brita and the Mavea. I stuck with the Mavea system, apparently it's the European Brita. The jug was an overpriced import from Amazon but the filters are available at Walmart and Canadian Tire, some coffee machines use them.
Personally I think it's the best tasting of the three, and the zerowater takes FOREVER to filter
It just tends to be a small amount of chlorine that you can't taste when you're used to it. I'm from the Alps and our water is actually not chlorinated and I often say I can taste the chlorine in the water but the locals will usually be like 'what are you talking about?' Examples where I tasted chlorine but locals didn't are Scotland, Germany, Italy, France
I thought the North American Brita system is a different product sold under license by Clorox, I looked it up again now and it's unclear, it might just be a different size/shape? I'll take a look at where they're made next time im out. Would be funny if I swore that I could taste a difference and they were the same all along
I use the Aarke filter, mostly because it has hardly any plastic, and works fantastically. I'm considering getting the water2 installed so all my taps are filtered clean water, with the rise of micro plastic concerns, I use filtered water even for cooking.
My water doesn't really need filtering, but I dated someone who didn't want to take the risk (and for a really good reason) we just used a brita branded one.
You should try non-filtered water with your coffee machine and see if it makes a difference in taste. Some coffee aficionados actually re-add minerals after filtering the water
Yes, I have actually tried it. For my coffee machine I don't notice a difference.
But at work we have a really nice espresso machine where we added a filter that adds magnesium to the water. There it really made a difference.