mineral content of water
i just came across an article titled "the great filtration myth"(sweet marias posting),in wich the author goes on to explain the importance of mineral content based on region ,and the character they(minerals such as ca,mg,fe,etc...) add to the flavor and experience of origin coffees.
i have a tendency to agree with the author,the presence of certain mineral content is neccesary to the development of the cup,but when does mineral content start to manipulate or distort the nuances of a good coffee instead of enhancing these subtle notes?
is tap water an acceptable source ?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brady on
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So, before I comment too much on this article, can you please post a link? I spent a couple of minutes searching around the SM website, as well as Google. Nothing.
Tap water conditioned to within equipment manufacturer's recommendations is the only practical source for us, so yeah, its fine.
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Permalink Reply by jeremiah frazier on
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the article was titled ,coffea cultura, "the filtration myth", i came across it on the sweet marias twitter scroll
Brady said:So, before I comment too much on this article, can you please post a link? I spent a couple of minutes searching around the SM website, as well as Google. Nothing.
Tap water conditioned to within equipment manufacturer's recommendations is the only practical source for us, so yeah, its fine.
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Permalink Reply by Matt B on
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Tap water mineral levels vary drastically from location to location. And the "best" tap water does not come from the places you'd think.
I've participated in a couple of cuppings in which water chemistry was played with. Pretty eye opening. I can't think of the PPM levels for different components offhand, but there was definitely a sweet spot, where the mineral content made the coffee sing.
I bet Cirqua has some hard numbers on their website . . .
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Ok.
So here is the link. Doing an external link in a post is really easy - just copy the url, hit the little "link" button within your post, and you are done. Makes it much easier for the rest of us to find the article that you are suggesting we read.
It is interesting that the author mentions the mineral content of this "superior" European water, but forgets to mention that most "European" equipment manufacturers strongly recommend water conditioning to around 2-3 grains of hardness. So they are presumably softening their water as well, to about the same degree...
Also interesting that the author uses the notion that "European coffee is superior to the rest of the world" to support his idea.
I am 100% in agreement that for things like beer - things that are meant to have a sense of place, should be made with local water. However, when I drink an excellent Burundi, I want to taste Burundi, not the water from Lake Norman.
Marshall started an brief thread on this topic over at H-B last month. The takeaway, to paraphrase pretty extensively, was that a little mineral content was good and that we ought not to just indiscriminately soften.
FWIW, the SCAA has a standard for water quality, detailed here. It includes both recommended and acceptable ranges of various mineral and sodium levels. Thanks, Marshall, for the reference.
To me, a little mineral content is great. I disagree, though, with the idea that it is good that mineral content variation creates "regional character".
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Permalink Reply by Mike Sabol on
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Beyond the idea of "standards" I like to think of coffee as a boiler plate, run of the mill, chemical reaction. Water is a chemical. Coffee contains many, many, chemicals. The water extracts those chemicals from the coffee and you end up drinking the result of that process. Mineral content in water greatly affects the way it will latch on to the chemicals in the coffee. 100% pure water is extremely corosive, (pure water will eat through just about anything, it's a universal solevent after all) and very hard water has no carrying capacity to spare. Both make bad coffee. So the truth, as in most cases, lies somewhere in the middle. Which is what a good filtration system is shooting for. That being said...
Are all minerals created equal? Will water from a glacier fed melt water river from the Rockies bring out the acidic notes from a coffee and will the limestone aquifer water develop deeper body? (Those are off the cuff examples by the way. Not meant to be acurate.) I don't think we really know the answer. Cirqua's remineralization system uses basic components to arrive at an "ideal" PPM hardness. When I've asked water guys my question they just looked at me sideways. I'm still not convinced that all minerals are equal though. Different waters from around the country and the world taste differently. Even the good ones taste different from each other. Some are sweet with a thick body, others are dry, crisp, and clean and disappear from your palate right away. All that difference comes from the minerals they carry. I'm just curious what happens to coffee extraction when you use different waters. Maybe there isn't any difference. Maybe it's as big as the difference between a french press and a syphon. I don't know. It would be interesting to find out, though.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Proteau on
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I would say, based on my limited scientific education, that dissolving solubles in water is a physical change (where molecules move around and maybe change from solid to liquid to gas), and not a chemical one (where molecules combine, swap various elements, and discard others to create a new compound). A solvent will grab soluble things from a solid and essentially put them in the spaces between it's molecules, like filling your pockets.
If your water starts out with a high level of dissolved minerals, it has filled up many pockets, and has no where to put the coffee. A low level water still has plenty of pocket space left. So within certain limits, you can adjust time, temperature, turbulence, grind setting, and dose to extract your target flavors.
Most tap waters I come across in PA are between 150-300 TDS. A decent water treatment should bring it down to 50-75. Really low TDS water will over-extract very easily, and vise versa. But you have elbow room to play with.
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great input, thank you ,
(thank you brady for the tech. tip)
i should explain what led to the re-kindled intrest of water.
i have used water from many sources ,well, tap,even systern,a couple years ago i moved to a lake fed directly from snow melt (best cup of coffee i ever made), having recently moved to an area that now uses a well-(rich in Cu, mg, fe)i have also found the Ph to be slightly higher, in a resolve to better my bunn ,i resorted to a mineral enriched water from culligan ,unfortunately the Ph of these bottled wares is all over the place(most turn acidic)
this led me to the mighty brita, eliminating the chlorine and most undesired mineral content ,but anything smaller than 3 micron is still present,my understanding of the saturation levels of water is at best layman,but i do know that H2O is pentagonal(molecular shape) wich is why it carries these minerals ,theyre allowed to associate with the open end of the molocule and eventually share an electron creating a new compound.
well ,what about HEXAGONAL water, molecular stucture of 6 sides,this formula seems to be more stable ,but is also no longer H2o after the addition of the 6 side it becomes HO2,displacing the extra hydrogen atom and re bonding to the oxygen.i dont know YET how this will effect the flavor of coffee, with the extra o2 i hope it will at least boil faster,(living at 7000 ft i struggle with water temp)
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