How do I Scottishify my water in the South East of England?

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pm-me-animal-facts@reddit

Are you moving to London/south east or just visiting? If moving, you get used to it quite quickly and then it just tastes normal.

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It's absolute bullshit to generalise like that. I've lived for most of my life in south Wales but spent two and a half years in Reading and never got used to that sickening liquid chalk. I only drank bottled water.

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He_ofshadowsandtouch@reddit

And all the plastic bottle waste made of oil is unnecessary

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AllThatIHaveDone@reddit

To be fair, if you exclusively drank bottled water, you'd never adjust to the local water.

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NecroVelcro@reddit

I couldn't tolerate it at all so I couldn't continue. It made me want to puke. It's a fallacy that everyone can "get used" to a flavour.

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AllThatIHaveDone@reddit

Eh, it is a psychological aversion, not a physical aversion. With enough exposure, you'd adjust.

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NecroVelcro@reddit

Like I did with Lucozade? I've had Type 1 diabetes since I was a toddler and, I'm sorry to say, Lucozade (the '80s, orange day-glo version) was seen as the standard hypo treatment and was given to me many, many times. I despised the flavour and it also always made me feel sick. It wasn't a symptom of the low blood sugar and not a psychological aversion due to the relating it to the stress of a hypo as Coke and Pepsi were palatable.

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AllThatIHaveDone@reddit

Yes, that's another example of a psychological aversion.

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frankbowles1962@reddit

You would have no problem adjusting from plastic bottles to the soft water from cities built on granite like Glasgow or Aberdeen

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Tattyead@reddit

I live in Wales but frequently work in schools in London. Usually half way through the second day of being away, I have to refill my big water bottle. The jolt of disgust never fails to surprise me.

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tobotic@reddit

> I've lived for most of my life in south Wales but spent two and a half years in Reading and never got used to that sickening liquid chalk. I only drank bottled water. How did you expect to get used to the local tap water if you only drank bottled water?

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NecroVelcro@reddit

I should have worded that better. It's not as if I didn't try. I did make many, many attempts but merely brushing my teeth with tap water was nauseating.

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holytriplem@reddit

https://youtu.be/HOaiFBuvUSg?si=goZw3M1-3G6xrB04

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Kent_Tog@reddit

Calm down ffs

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RoutineCloud5993@reddit

Lived in London for 18 months and reading for 10 years. The water still tastes like Satan's used bidet. Even filtered stuff is still foul. The only place worse is Barcelona, because it's got so much chlorine in it that you're basically drinking from a swimming pool

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Glad-Pomegranate6283@reddit

I lived in Bristol for 18 months and the whole time I hated drinking water

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Original_Document748@reddit

Drink bottled water

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VOODOO285@reddit

Money to burn have you?

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PetersMapProject@reddit

Planet earth to burn while you're at it

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Original_Document748@reddit

Lol so you dont have a recycling bin ?

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PetersMapProject@reddit

The plastic is not the only issue, and recycling doesn't fully fix it, it just reduces the harm. Think, for example, of all the extra lorries on the roads transporting the water from bottling plant to supermarket, and all the diesel that burns

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VOODOO285@reddit

lol that you think most recyclable waste gets recycled.

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Original_Document748@reddit

Depends on area , some have a higher recycling percentage

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Original_Document748@reddit

He asked for advice and I gave it lol

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biglypiglythethird@reddit

I actually quite like London tap water. But yeah, Brita filter if you can’t get on with it.

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InZim@reddit

I'm from England but live in Scotland and the water is nothing special up here. Think it's mostly in your head.

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audigex@reddit

Which part of England are you from? Scottish water is similar to Wales (or rather, the Welsh border area in this case), Northumbria, Cumbria, Cornwall, Lancashire, some parts of Yorkshire and Cheshire - so if you've mostly lived there you won't notice much difference Comparing to Southern England, though, you're a massive outlier if you can't tell the difference - it absolutely isn't "just in your head" for most people and the water is chemically very different in terms of the dissolved solids contained in it

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InZim@reddit

From East Mids, but lived in East Anglia, Birmingham (Welsh water isn't it?), but not the Southeast. Worked in London plenty though, so have drunk a lot of tap water in the office.

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frankbowles1962@reddit

It is very much softer in most of Scotland than in the south of England which is built on chalk. Notice how you don’t have to descale kettles etc up here

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InZim@reddit

Yeah I've noticed that, but considering descaling takes about 10 minutes I don't really care. In terms of drinking experience I very much do not like the taste of the water in Dundee compared to the multiple places I've lived in England.

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ResplendentBear@reddit

Water in Scotland, like the people, is surprisingly very soft. I don't know if there's some way to portably soften water but that's what you'd need to do. \>the water genuinely tastes like someone has added sugar to it It's literally just chalk.

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Careless-Giraffe-623@reddit

It's more likely calcium and magnesium, but hard water doesn't make for great tasting water.. And it causes scale in kettles etc.. It's harmless but not good quality. I'm. With the OP.. I'm not Scottish but the tap water in Yorkshire is so much nicer than down south.

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ResplendentBear@reddit

Can't argue with the scale, but saying it's not good quality is absolute nonsense. What evidence there is suggests hard water is better for human health. Odds are you just prefer the taste of whatever the water was where you grew up.

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Careless-Giraffe-623@reddit

Sorry I should have said hard water is not as good tasting as softer water, rather than worse quality. Slightly higher trace amounts of minerals like calcium are not bad for health at all.. Just not so good for your kettle getting scaled up over time etc.

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Careless-Giraffe-623@reddit

Anecdotaly I spend quite a bit of time in Spain, and the water there is quite high in magnesium, relatively speaking. So if you're not used to it, you'll get the shits.. It's not that the water is low quality as such, but it will go through you 'like a dose of salts' as they say.

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audigex@reddit

The main difference between the water is mineral content Scottish/Cumbrian/Welsh/etc water is very soft with little mineral content, southern water is hard with lots of minerals dissolved in it A Britta filter can help a little by removing heavy metals and a small amount of other content, but the real way to improve it is with reverse osmosis or a water softener - these actually remove the minerals Be careful with RO water, it removes almost everything and we do actually need some minerals in the water for our health

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Magic_phil@reddit

I’m from Falkirk but live in NYC now. Everyone here likes to harp on about how good the water tastes in New York but, compared to home, it’s terrible. There’s an overwhelming smell of chlorine from the water (which I’ve had tested and been told ‘it’s fine’ 🙄 I use a Cuz-n under counter water filter which connects directly to the mains inlet. It cost me $125 and is guaranteed for five years. It’s excellent, and gets the water to about as close as I can to the water back home. Take a look at some filters that connect directly to mains. I’ve tried the Britta filters/jugs etc, but nothing comes close.

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R3DSmurf@reddit

Cheap £30 water filter kit under your sink

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Southportdc@reddit

You're just missing the taste of the heroin/batter/Irn Bru/add your own cheap stereotype here

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escapingfromelba@reddit

Run the pipe through a bag of peat compost, much cheaper.

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cloudswalking@reddit

I don't think there's any way you can make it taste 'the same'. But using the three stage filters you could get 'plain' water. You might like it. You might not. Every area has a different cocktail of minerals from the land it came from. You could also try boiled water. It does change the taste completely. I just can't drink the extra soft water in Cornwall, even as a child. (Now on my 60's) And because I only really water, i have tried cery hard. But when I moved from London to the Cotswolds, and at first didn't like the water, I did eventually get used to it, and now I'm totally ok with it. And also enjoy it boiled. We also have some great natural springs in my area, and the one's I collect from definitly taste very different. The place I've experienced a huge difference by two springs literally on each side of the same road ten feet from each other is in Glastonbury where the red spring from chalice gardens is incredibly iron tasting and opposite the white spring which is so different. Many springs are used by families who only drink 'live' water and they collect regularly to bring home. Some people may be surprised that there are also lots of springs and holy wells in London too. You could research if any near you are potable.

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Easy-Equal@reddit

Hard water is generally better for you to drink than soft water health wise

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Llotrog@reddit

That's why bottled water sells in the London area. What I don't get is how people manage to wash their hair in the terrible tap water there.

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Tirno93@reddit

I’m from the South East and live in a part where the water is relatively soft. Moved to (near) Brighton for a few years where the water is drawn from the South Downs (chalk hills) and it never became tolerable. The chalkiness coats your mouth, making it dry, even though you’ve just been drinking. Fortunately I’ve always found a water filter (Brita etc) to be sufficient to fix the problem. And my top tip is to fill a glass bottle from the jug rather than having to juggle pouring and refilling all the time

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stinkbaybe@reddit

Move to Birmingham. Enjoyed the tap water more there than when I lived in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

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Tastetherainbow_2016@reddit

I work with a Scottish guy who will only drink bottled Highland Spring. Always saying “Thas comes oot the tap fer free where ah come from..” 😅 tbf London water sucks, I dont blame him

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QuarrieMcQuarrie@reddit

Having grown up in Suffolk, now living in Scotland but having to visit parent in Suffolk- Watership filters, descale kettle monthly, swill out kettle regularly. Then you can have a cup of tea about 1/10 as good as you can in Scotland.

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PreoccupiedParrot@reddit

Britta filters or off brand britta filters or refillable ones like plox.

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