Tea

Back from a week in a soft water area, I thought I ought to report on the effect that soft water had on our tea.

Some people do not like the change from hard to soft or from soft to hard and I certainly used to notice the change from hard to soft, but my taste buds must have weakened, as I no longer notice the change in taste, but I did still notice the change in appearance.

Which change is the more or less complete absence in the soft water area of the unsightly brown scum, on the surface of the tea, or sticking to the sides of the cup or mug, which we get with our hard water here in Epsom. Scum which slides about on said sides when fresh, but which then dries on, making removal a serious matter.

I also noticed the much quicker brewing from tea bag with soft water, more or less instant when pouring boiling water onto a first use tea bag. Furthermore, one can get two good cups of tea and one adequate cup of tea from the one (Tetley's) tea bag.

Just one cup of tea with an unpleasant taste, which I put down to too much washing up liquid in the dishwasher of the café in question, or too little rinsing after washing. A problem which we know all about here in Epsom.

Just one cup of tea with (red) skimmed milk, which I did not care for at all. While I did not notice the difference between (green) semi-skimmed and (blue) regular, which I did when we first moved to semi-skimmed, some years ago now, which took me several weeks to get used to.