- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
cross-posted from: https://europe.pub/post/47526
Absolutely not something to be given for granted.
Shoutout to u/UnusualInstance6 on Reddit
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Water is, unironically, my favourite drink on this earth.
You guys drink donuts?
…you don’t?
You don’t just stab a straw into a creme filled doughnut to slurp out all the creme?
I’ve found it easier to just stab the original carton
Better for your teef as well.
Hydrate bitches!
In some EU countries it’s pretty bad tasting though. Too much chlorine for me to really get used to.
Most places treat their water with chlorine or chloramine. Way better than having amoebas but if you can afford a filter do so. Different municipalities treat water differently, look yours up or test to see what you need. I went from carbon filters for chloramine to RO after moving somewhere with worse water
I guess it’s more like most places in some regions.
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Where I grew up it they get 44% pumped groundwater, and 56% from capped sources in the surrounding hills. The water from the sources is UV light treated to kill any organic contaminants, the ground water didn’t need it.
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Where I lived during high school it was all ground water filtered in three stages: ozone, activated carbon, and pH rebalancing, because it was close to a major river that leads into the Rhine.
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Where I live now we get 85% groundwater, and 15% from sources with UV treatment for the sources only again.
So you can imagine that I’m not used to the taste. Visiting some regions in Italy where they chlorinated their water pretty hard, especially in summer, is always kind of a shock taste wise. Though to be fair I gotta say in Torino where I was last year it was completely fine.
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Yeah. I’ll drink tap water if I need to, but I’m not such a huge fan of limestone. I know it’s not bad for me and in sane amounts it doesn’t affect the flavour too much, but my tap water has way too much.
I’ve lived in other cities in the same country where water tasted way better. So it’s not that I’ve ruined my taste buds by drinking copious amounts of carbonated mineral water, it’s that in the particular city I live, every apartment has had kinda shit tap water. Of course it’s all city water.
My friend’s parents’ home has tap water that comes from a spring on their own property. It has a lot of iron and that water tastes pretty damn good. My own childhood home has a well that the pump lifts water from. It’s not excellent, but it’s still better than the tap water in my current city.
Chlorine is kinda fragile, you can boil it or use uv (sunlight) to break it down. I find Melbourne water tastes bleachy from the tap.
I’m Canadian, living in Canada. I grew up drinking unfiltered tap water (municipal water) all my life and still do. My tap water has always tasted fine to me and I have no health issue. I prefer my tap water over soda, juices, sport drinks or flavoured water etc, which has too much sugar.
I’ve never lived in a place where the water isn’t drinkable, but I’ve seldom drank from the tap without filtration. Water is so vital to us, it just seems wise to be careful.
Keep in mind that more surface area usually means more bacteria. Afaik there’s is nothing wrong with the usual changable filters (although there are a few horrid ones).
But many private households tend to underestimate how dirty these things get, even after a short time.
Since water supplied by the municipality is usually fine and most bad stuff happens as a last-mile problem, I shower in the morning (which I have to do anyway, but it also flushes most pipes) and then wash out a large stainless steel beaker before filling it up and drinking from it for most of the day.
As a EU citizen I always buy my water bottled instead of from the tap, not only does it taste better… but my family used to have a water distiller when I was growing up and we sometimes put tap water inside of it and after the distilling process the residue left was disgusting and gooey, even with some rust laced in (this was in the Côte d’Azur for context) in comparison most good quality bottled water just left a trace mineral residue. Safe to say I’d rather drink mineral residue over rust!
You don’t want to know how much plastic you drank. Stop that, buy a filter for your tap. Your brand is probably better than Nestle but not much. https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/truth-about-nanoplastics-bottled-water
Yo, that water come in plastic bottles? You know the plastic leaches forever chemicals into the water. Also, you’ve created a few tonnes of plastic waste by drinking water this way. So well done you.
Fun fact: iron oxide is food safe. It’s being used to make glittery drinks.
Rust is completely fine.
Definitely not a German who made this one.
I am German. I drink tap water. Most of my friends do as well.
I tried when I visited Munich and it was like drinking from swimming pool.
It’s kind of the most regulated tap water in the world. As long as the building is not 200 years old, it should be perfectly fine.
Fine as in safe, horrid when it comes to the flavour and smell
Generally true, but still not true in a lot cases. Also the taste can often be really bad.
So good
I’m mostly basing it on my experience at restaurants in the 90s. If you asked for water, you got mineral water.
That’s more of a greed issue, though. Though bottled water is very popular in Germany, many people don’t bother with it especially if they live in multi-family homes (very unfun to carry bottled water up 3 flights of stairs) and definitely if they don’t have a car.
You gotta ask for tap water, if you want tap water. Otherwise, they’ll bring you bottled water, which sells for more.
Yeah, I learned that quickly, but even then, you would get room temperature water with no ice. Was quite a culture shock!
Most regulated tap water in the world. 🇩🇪
No it’s not, aside from a few select countries like the Netherlands, it stinks of bleach just like the USA. It’s clean yes, but it smells like a pool
I’ve never smelled chlorine or any other artificial chemicals in German tap water. It’s often pretty hard, though, which is a bit of a pain for e.g. coffeemakers.
In Germany, chlorine is extremely rarely used, only if the water from the wells is possibly contaminated with bacteria or, temporarily, if there have been issues with the water tubes.
Especially in Spain, it’s more common.
Nestlé:
Well, depends on either your definition of “drinkable” or “all” :D
I mean, you will find at least one spot in every EU country with drinkable tap water
Germany: Takes third option and buys bottled water. Part of the reason is that carbonated water is really popular, and home carbonators are usually kind of difficult/annoying to clean properly. Also, restaurants often won’t serve tap water due to greed.
It’s a generational thing, too, though. At my parents’ place, they’ll look at me like I lost a limb when I drink tap water. Meanwhile, all the homies and homettes drink nothing but tap water.
I’ll never understand countries where restaurants don’t serve tap water for free… It feels so greedy (as you say) and doesn’t make me want to eat there…
It was a big struggle for me in germany. I have a condition that makes swallowing food very difficult and have to essentially “push” food down with a lot of water.
I would easily need to buy 2-3 .75l bottles per meal, so instead I bought 1 bottle and brought a reusable water bottle to every restaurant. No one complained, and I did always buy at least a drink.
But if you just let me have tap water, or even have tap water after purchasing a drink I could have enjoyed a meal without rationing my water.
Most restaurants will serve you tap water if you buy a meal and a drink.
I mean I’ll happily pay for tapwater, as long as it is chraper than the cheapest other beverage. Thats because many (good) restaurants (not the tourist traps) mostly make their profit with the drinks and not with the food menues. The margin is just a lot bigger on drinks.
The biggest brand of home carbonators (Soda Stream) is an Israeli brand. Just something to think about.
I drink Sprudelwasser with dinner and the rest of the day it’s just tap water. We live in an incredibly hard water area so tap water is basically mineral water.
When you drink hard water, are you getting stoned? 😏
You do have to ve mindful of kidney stones, so in a way, yes.
I never order tap water but I thought, restaurants have to give it for free?
Not in Germany they don’t! They can and will refuse to serve it at all. And the cheapest drink on the menu is often sweet soda, instead of something healthy.
I knew a guy back in the days who always ordered “Hahnenwasser” as he called it and it was free. Maybe this changed or it’s regional. I know the cheapest drink has to be without alcohol and I’m pretty sure water is never more expensive than soda
Hahnenwasser literally means tap water. The tap is called “Hahn”.
I know, it’s just that most other people call it Leitungswasser
That’s a north/south difference in German. Leitungswasser in the Saupreisn areas, Hahnenwasser in the Bergjuden/Schluchtenscheißer regions.
I’ve never been to Germany but this has to be affordable there if its affordable anywhere in the world:
Get a clean keg, fill almost all the way with water, put in the fridge and connect to co2 cylinder at 35-50 psi. 35 will take 1-2 days to carbonate and you can turn it down for serving. higher will usually be faster. shaking the water keg with the co2 attached can have it done in a minute or two. basically if you can already dispense a keg you can make infinite carbonated water for pretty much nothing
you can also get bags of mineral amendments from a brewing shop to replicate your favourite brand or spring.
Your fridge fits an entire keg?
one of them is a somewhat normal residential fridge and can fit a 20L on the left side if you take out the drawers and shelves on that side. The other is just a kegerator I got from a small brewery that went out of business and just replaced the lines and the taps.
Your fridge has a “left side” with separate drawers from the right side? That’s gigantic.
no the shelves are normal except they are half width and anchor on 3 of 4 corners. the drawers and shelves can be side by side, stacked, or spaced out. one side has all the shelves, the other just barely can’t have a shelf above the keg. total width would fit two kegs, maybe with the co2 nested between but it’s more convenient to put other stuff in using shelves on half
How wide is your fridge? I have 48cm (on the inside) to work with.
If only these idiots could stop making plastic bottles. Fucking earth murderers.
Tap water decreases your microplastic exposure by 90%.
You still can find glass bottle to avoid drinking plastics. Bottled water usually have less PFAS but it is variable and depends where you live.
This is false: Water in glass bottles often contains more microplastics than water from plastic bottles, likely due to cleaning agents.
Source (in german) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lemi.202352256
Nano plastics particules are everywhere. As I said it is mainly conditioned by where you live, the water and the production process. https://www.regentstudies.com/2024/09/12/glass-vs-plastic-bottle-vs-metal/
I reuse tequila bottles to store tap water, which I leave in the sun, for the uv to break down the chlorine.
Glass absorbs UV light, it’s pointless
Other light does damage too. You can see it on materials at which sun shines through a window.
Fr?
Compared to bottled water, oh yeah. Here’s some articles from various places:
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/plastic-particles-bottled-water
https://time.com/6553165/microplastics-in-bottled-water-study/
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/10/1223730333/bottled-water-plastic-microplastic-nanoplastic-study
I just took some I recognised as “ok” sources, but there are thousands of articles about it elsewhere too.
Wow, that is awesome! And actually some good news for once. Thanks for the info.
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The amount of bottled water in the EU is insane, lol. I’d always Google it just to be sure, but the tap water is always drinkable, so I try to do that instead of buying a ton of bottles (or getting them at restaurants. I wish parts of the EU had more water fountains and refill stations for metal water bottles.
I’m guessing it’s more of a cultural thing from the postwar reconstruction?
The reason behind bottled water is a mixture of bad taste, hardness and lack of trust for watter supply (age related thing). Hence why additional filters have become somewhat popular (from small bottles with built-in filters that you fill on the go up to large separate installations that filter water for entire house). Everything depends on type of water available in certain areas. Cities by the mountains are the best in that aspect as they are often supplied with water directly from the mountains.
Officially tap water in Malta is drinkable but somehow several hotels I visited have instructed not to drink tap water and office I used had water filters installed on tap.
There is problems in EU countries too so I would not always trust the official declaration especially when country has higher level corruption - example like Malta.
It’s because aside from a few countries, everyone puts chlorine in their water. It stinks and tastes awefull
It’s not always drinkable, especially not as a tourist.
I wouldn’t drink tap water in Crete for instance
I mean, the rules are always a bit different for islands.
Just an example, there’s plenty other instances of towns and areas.
