Cheap water filters for tea!

[cmadd]

I'm looking to buy a relatively cheap setup for filtering my water for tea. Does a Brita pitcher cut it? Feel free to show off your setups and/or suggest some!

[tingjunkie]

Yep, Brita works in most areas. I'm using a few pieces of bamboo charcoal in my kettle personally- not really a filter, but it improves the quality of the water a great deal.

[bagua7]

Is it $150 AUD cheap for you? I wouldn't go lower than that. Water quality is so important that really makes a difference, not just for health reasons but the tea itself.

I use the counter top you can view on this page:

http://www.raindance.com.au/countertop.shtml

Each cartdrige (carbon filter method) lasts 6 months and costs approximately $55 AUD.

Google for this method in your country and you will probably find something along those lines.

Proper water filters are worth the investment.

Good luck.

[Victoria]

Adagio's is similar to a Britta, and you get the buyer points and support our host.

[Proinsias]

I use a brits max filter. Works a treat. No need to change the filter every four weeks. Mine are fine for up to 3 months.

Planning on getting an under the sink filter with a separate little tap, had my eye on one ever since my dad installed his last year.

[Mr. Usaji]

A filter that attaches to your sink is cheaper in the long term than a pitcher. I think bottled spring water is a bit better (I haven't tasted them side-by side), but expensive and wasteful of plastic. I assume charcoal is the cheapest option, but I haven't tried it (yet) so I don't know how much it costs.

I know that many people like bamboo charcoal, but is there a reason why bamboo works better than other kinds? Or is it just that it lends an appropriately East Asian ambience to your tea experience?

[tingjunkie]

A years worth of bamboo charcoal in the kettle is somewhere around $8 or so. I found mine at Mitsuwa Marketplace in NJ.

I think I am going to try making my own Brita filter of sorts out of broken up pieces of charcoal in a glass funnel, then aging the filtered tap water for a day or two in a glass/ceramic jar. We'll see how that works.

Not sure if bamboo is better than any other wood, but since it grows so fast, it's more of a renewable resource than most other woods. Now, putting the bamboo in a kiln or furnace to make it charcoal... not sure what that does to the environment.