If you live in a hard water area, you might often think about how a block salt softener could improve your drinking water or your morning shower, but do you ever think about how it might affect that morning brew you love so much?

You may know that hard water areas will often end up with more limescale in the kettle due to the high mineral content being deposited inside, but what about the actual final drink?

Well, according to this article from the Mail, the perfect cup of coffee requires some pretty expert chemistry and is very hard to recreate at home.

Most importantly, we’re interested to see whether hard or soft water makes for a better cup of tea. Well, of course, it’s neither – rather somewhere in between. For water that is too soft, lacking calcium ions and bicarbonate make for a cup of coffee that’s more acidic than you’d really prefer. However, if you’re in a hard water area, the high levels of bicarbonate will neutralise those tasty acids which make your coffee so flavoursome.

As you don’t usually drink many home brewed coffees from outside of your own water area, you may not have noticed what a difference it can make, but after treating your hard water supply with a softener, you might be very surprised with the change in the taste of your coffee!

All of this is even before you tackle the questions of coffee grind particle size, the intricacies of temperature, dilution or brewing method, but at least you’re one step closer to the perfect brew.