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Water

your favourite tipple - wine, beer, spirits
stewamax
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Water

#152254

Postby stewamax » July 13th, 2018, 8:28 pm

I have been a long-term (and quantity) buyer of Lidl's excellent and very good value Saskia fizzy water sourced from the Loningen spring in Germany.
No longer.
It recently switched from 1.5L to 2L bottles. No problem with that.
And then I tasted the water and found there wasn't any taste, and it went flat quickly. Odd I thought.
Then I looked at the small print and found that is is now sourced from the UK.
Caveat emptor (or should it be permalum bibit cave).

Dod101
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Re: Water

#152269

Postby Dod101 » July 13th, 2018, 10:31 pm

Sorry to hear that. I live within about 2 miles of the Highland Spring factory (so called) and get the same water out of my tap so I would never dream of buying bottled water. I appreciate that we cannot all live here but I am also within a few minutes walk of the starter's box for the PGA course where the 2014 Ryder Cup was played.

Can recommend it.

Dod

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Water

#152275

Postby UncleEbenezer » July 13th, 2018, 11:52 pm

Thanks for the warning. I've been an occasional buyer of that stuff (though it's been a while) and valued it as relatively-acceptable, especially for the price.

ObRant: Why are British bottled waters - including the expensive ones - all so foul? Not to mention lacking any kind of intermediate between flat-and-tasteless and offensively gassy? I really miss water as I knew it in Italy, where (quite apart from the tap water being nicer than any I've encountered in southern England[1]) they have something called "Naturally effervescent": the merest hint of tiny bubbles making for a really nice drink. Least-bad I've found in Blighty is a french brand called Badoit, which is pleasant but ridiculously expensive at up to £1 for a bottle half the size of what could cost as little as 25p in Italy.

[1] The nicest tap water I've encountered anywhere I lived was Sheffield. And when I lived there I was able to go out on a Sunday with empty water bottles, and fill them with even nicer water from various sources in the Peaks. Alas, Dartmoor is no substitute, though our tap water here is a lot nicer than in the southeast.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Water

#152322

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 14th, 2018, 1:14 pm

Tap water in Slough is awful. Assumed it came from one of the big reservoirs out near Heathrow, but water testing bloke reckons Maidenhead
It's yucky and heavily chlorinated.
Not sure if the Queen (just down the road) is on same supply, but IIRC she sticks to bottled Malvern water (good plan)

bungeejumper
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Re: Water

#152327

Postby bungeejumper » July 14th, 2018, 2:09 pm

Tap water is totally undrinkable in our village, probably because they're still using the cast iron pipes that were laid in the late nineteenth century, and they figure that pumping the water mains full of chemicals is a better way of fending off cholera than it would be if they were to put their hands in their overstuffed pockets and give us some 21st century pipes. The water losses from the pipe cracks alone must be costing them more than the required outlay for new pipes.

Accordingly, we drink a lot of bottled water. (Although for some curious reason the wife seems to prefer the toxic stuff out of the taps for making tea, a beverage which I rarely touch. But that's another story.) We've tried most of the still brands over the years, but have settled with Buxton in preference to Highland Spring. For carbonated water we just buy Sainsburys, or Badoit if we've got company.

One thing I've never forgotten was the taste of bottled water in 1960s Germany, which was so heavily carbonated that it almost literally stung your tongue. Delivered to your home in beer crates, in those "patent cork" bottles with swivelling wire snap-shut tops. Probably too chalky for today's tastes, but on a hot afternoon I could cheerfully sit and swig that stuff instead of beer. Does anybody know of anything like that these days?

BJ

bungeejumper
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Re: Water

#152336

Postby bungeejumper » July 14th, 2018, 3:43 pm

Wrt chlorinated water, I read somewhere that the chlorine evaporates pretty quickly from an open vessel, so maybe leave a glass for half an hour before drinking.

Yep, that works. Of course, it does still leave the fluorosilicic acid, the aluminium sulphate, the calcium hydroxide, the sodium silicofluoride, the trihalomethanes and the salts of [expletive deleted], aluminium, copper, lead and mercury. And the gritty red stuff that jams up the ceramic disc tap valves. Hey ho, down the hatch. :?

BJ

stewamax
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Re: Water

#152338

Postby stewamax » July 14th, 2018, 4:37 pm

it does still leave the fluorosilicic acid, the aluminium sulphate, the calcium hydroxide, the sodium silicofluoride, the trihalomethanes and the salts of [expletive deleted], aluminium, copper, lead and mercury.

otherwise called taste!

bungeejumper
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Re: Water

#152352

Postby bungeejumper » July 14th, 2018, 6:18 pm

stewamax wrote:
it does still leave the fluorosilicic acid, the aluminium sulphate, the calcium hydroxide, the sodium silicofluoride, the trihalomethanes and the salts of [expletive deleted], aluminium, copper, lead and mercury.

otherwise called taste!

Yeah, but why does it have to glow in the dark? :|

BJ

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Water

#152353

Postby UncleEbenezer » July 14th, 2018, 6:22 pm

stewamax wrote:
it does still leave the fluorosilicic acid, the aluminium sulphate, the calcium hydroxide, the sodium silicofluoride, the trihalomethanes and the salts of [expletive deleted], aluminium, copper, lead and mercury.

otherwise called taste!

Though the label is "mineral water", to indicate all those traces of minerals.

bungeejumper
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Re: Water

#152358

Postby bungeejumper » July 14th, 2018, 7:10 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:Though the label is "mineral water", to indicate all those traces of minerals.

Would have been a good answer (mercury and [expletive deleted] must be doing you good in some sort of a way? :lol: ), except that we were talking in this instance about tap water, not bottled.

ISTR that Coca Cola once got themselves into a scrape by marketing a mineral water that was essentially tap water. Or am I mixing them up with the Grundys in the Archers, who ruptured a water main and thought they'd struck it big as spring water producers?

(Egad, that must have been a while ago. I stopped following the Ambridge saga 25 years ago. Has the plot moved on since then?)

BJ

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Water

#152365

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 14th, 2018, 7:33 pm

I thought Only Fools and Horses had that as a plot line - Peckham Spring?
(I hate the Archers, and have leave the room when my mum has it on when I'm back home)

Pastcaring
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Re: Water

#152578

Postby Pastcaring » July 16th, 2018, 6:04 am

bungeejumper wrote:Tap water is totally undrinkable in our village, probably because they're still using the cast iron pipes that were laid in the late nineteenth century, and they figure that pumping the water mains full of chemicals is a better way of fending off cholera than it would be if they were to put their hands in their overstuffed pockets and give us some 21st century pipes. The water losses from the pipe cracks alone must be costing them more than the required outlay for new pipes.

Accordingly, we drink a lot of bottled water. (Although for some curious reason the wife seems to prefer the toxic stuff out of the taps for making tea, a beverage which I rarely touch. But that's another story.) We've tried most of the still brands over the years, but have settled with Buxton in preference to Highland Spring. For carbonated water we just buy Sainsburys, or Badoit if we've got company.

One thing I've never forgotten was the taste of bottled water in 1960s Germany, which was so heavily carbonated that it almost literally stung your tongue. Delivered to your home in beer crates, in those "patent cork" bottles with swivelling wire snap-shut tops. Probably too chalky for today's tastes, but on a hot afternoon I could cheerfully sit and swig that stuff instead of beer. Does anybody know of anything like that these days?

BJ


When I lived in Germany I also found those natural sparkling mineral waters to be very addictive.

Stuttgart had a few drinking fountains that the mineral water was hooked into,very nice.

When we are at home in Thailand singha soda water with a lime squeezed into it always hits the spot.After a bike ride.

At home in Perth the lemon tree gives lemons all year round.Freeze up a litre of tap water in a 2 litre bottle,add a litre of premixed cold lemon juice/ water ,and that gives me cold lemon drink while I ride up the cycle path north from Fremantle,gazing at the Indian ocean ,thinking how wonderful life is.

That German water was very nice though,I' m off on the bike now,stopped raining,but still cold 16C.

Pastcaring
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Re: Water

#152581

Postby Pastcaring » July 16th, 2018, 6:14 am

The name of the bottled water has just come back to me,Bad Pyrmont

The fountains in Stuttgart were around the Bad Cannstadt area, near the open air swimming pool. Very nice on a 30C southern Germany summer day

Rhyd6
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Re: Water

#152698

Postby Rhyd6 » July 16th, 2018, 4:00 pm

We have our own spring water, in fact we have 6 of them hence my name Rhyd(stream) 6. I find tap water in most places leaves a metallic taste in my mouth so when we're on holiday I tend to buy bottled water usually supermarket own brand. I shall bear in mind your comments re change of supplier.

R6

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Water

#152754

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 16th, 2018, 9:22 pm

Family hols used to be a nice woodland campsite near Tremadoc. The water there was lovely

JMN2
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Re: Water

#152815

Postby JMN2 » July 17th, 2018, 8:55 am

bungeejumper wrote:...

One thing I've never forgotten was the taste of bottled water in 1960s Germany, which was so heavily carbonated that it almost literally stung your tongue. Delivered to your home in beer crates, in those "patent cork" bottles with swivelling wire snap-shut tops. Probably too chalky for today's tastes, but on a hot afternoon I could cheerfully sit and swig that stuff instead of beer. Does anybody know of anything like that these days?

BJ


I wonder if you are talking about "vichy water" instead of mineral water, very popular on the continent in the olden days. Vichy water has a bit of salt in it which makes it different from mineral water.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Water

#152863

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 17th, 2018, 11:49 am

Vichy water? - that was a Franco-German collaboration I think

Hardgrafter
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Re: Water

#152879

Postby Hardgrafter » July 17th, 2018, 12:19 pm

I built a plant to produced 'purified water', which is the bottled alternative to natural mineral water. The quality regulations are very similar (public supply drinking water being slightly better in fact) between them both, except for the 'protect source' aspect of mineral water (which means it can't be treated in any way). Almost all mineral waters come from underground water sources, as opposed to rivers, and thus don't need cleaning up.

Your preference in drinking water is mostly a matter of acquired taste.

In general water containing minerals (roughly >300 mg/l various salts) is good for tea, and low mineral content (<100 mg/l) for coffee. It should not contain much sulphate, which gives a flat taste and at high levels gives your guts a good rinse out... About 200 mg/l bicarbonate gives the water a generally acceptable 'bite'. Read the analysis on the labels if possible. Definitely chill the water.

Tap water in UK is chlorinated, but what you actually taste are the byproducts of chlorination of the organics - or colour - of the water (the THMs referred to by another poster). Believe me, the UK water industry is extremely well run by conscientious professional staff.

Continental tap waters (NL, Germany) tend not to be chlorinated (they are originally, but are de-chlorinated before going into supply). the Spanish like chlorinating! I would however never drink US tap water, unless I knew where it was coming from, as their standards are lower than EU, and tend to excessive chlorination.

bungeejumper
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Re: Water

#152982

Postby bungeejumper » July 17th, 2018, 6:20 pm

Fascinating stuff, Hardgrafter. Many thanks!
Hardgrafter wrote:I would however never drink US tap water, unless I knew where it was coming from, as their standards are lower than EU, and tend to excessive chlorination.

Good for washing chickens, though? ;)

BJ

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Water

#153043

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 17th, 2018, 10:05 pm

How often do you need to wash a chicken? Does the chicken mind?


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