Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody
So you have gone all out and swore off the corporate world of specialty coffee shops and high end tea houses and decided to make a go of it on your own at home. There could be different motives that might have driven you over the edge and feet first into your new endeavor. It could be the silent protest of corporate greed in America, or maybe your budget has forced you to decide between designer morning go juice or diapers. In most cases the diapers win, but I digress.
- You stand over your faucet filling the coffee pot or the tea kettle in hopes of getting those bloodshot eyes open and filling your heart with the passion that it takes to get out there in this mad, mad world and just win.
- You mill around your house waiting the standard time that you would if you were at an esteemed caffeine vendor, just without the happy smile of the barista.
- Ding, the process is complete. Soon you will be enjoying the sweet nectar of hustle that you so longingly desire.
- Sip, pause, WTF.
Your drink is tainted with the metallic, sometimes salty, highly oxidized taste that you weren’t expecting. Some call it bitter coffee face. What to do? Well, in my travels through the plumbing universe I have found a remedy to this unfortunate malady. It’s a pretty scientific and technical, and I could really bore you with the nuances of the process, but for this articles sake we are going to steer clear of the tech and leave that for the scientists at the links below. Two words: Reverse Osmosis.
Reverse Osmosis basically makes water pure through a series of filtering. This is optimum when you are attempting to recreate the taste of the half caff, non-fat, soy milk mocha latte with room for cream at 140 degrees, in your home just the way Conner at the local ‘bucks does. The impurities and additives present in municipality water and well water provide you with the off flavors that you are trying to avoid.
The Reverse Osmosis units themselves are fairly inexpensive when weighed next to your caffeine habit, which means they will basically pay for themselves over a period of time. They are also pretty readily available at your local plumbing supplier.
Installation of a unit by yourself might be a little tricky. Luckily there are local plumbers that could help you, hint, hint. You might lose a little bit of room under the counter, or where ever you decide to place the little holding tank. The unit requires a point of use faucet, so you might need a hole on your counter. Al Gore and his band of merry green pranksters might get a little peeved with you as the process takes about 4 gallons of city or well water to produce one gallon of pure water, however there are some sustainable options to re-use the otherwise wasted water, so back off Al. Below you will find a link that shows you where the wasted water goes and how it is re-used.
Have I talked you out of this yet? If not here are a few links so you can do some of your own digging.
How it works (scientifically speaking)
Examples of units that I have come into contact with
AquaPure (the one that I have)
Watts Zero Waste system (take that Al Gore)