Does Tea For Hard Water Really Work?

Block salt softeners don’t just keep your boiler from breaking down, they can also help you brew a better cup of tea.

Don’t believe us? In recent years tea companies have committed to finding tea blends that work better with hard and soft water, as the impact on the tea can be so profound.

The reasons behind this are interesting, and have to do with the pH of the water. Soft water, which is much better for tea making has a low pH, while hard water has a higher, or more alkaline pH.

As anyone who has attempted to grow rhododendrons in their gardens knows, these grow better in peaty, alkaline soils with a higher pH than average. These compounds make it into your tea leaves and give them their distinctive flavour.

Now, the water that you are brewing your tea in will dissolve these flavours, and get them into your tea, and soft, or acidic water, is much, much better at this than hard water, which is why you will have a better flavour cup of tea with soft water than with hard water.

This means that tea brewed in hard water needs to be stronger, for the same level of flavour. The blends for hard water tend to have lots of Assams and East African teas to achieve this.

You can get around all of this and brew whichever tea bags you want, safe in the knowledge you will have a superior brew, if you get a water softener installed.

Find out more at AllAboutTea.