Besides the actual coffee that you select to brew with, water is the most important element that goes into a cup of coffee. The mineral content, total dissolved solids and ph level of the water you use, can have drastic effects on the finished cup. Using the wrong water can ruin a beautiful coffee and nobody wants to see that happen.
At the most basic level, water chemistry isn’t a huge deal. Conventional coffee wisdom is, if your water tastes good for drinking, it will taste good for coffee. To a certain extent this is truth.
2026 Coffee Water Update and Post Summary
It has been ten years since I originally wrote this article about water, and reading through it, not a lot has changed. There are more discussions happening around water for coffee than there were a decade ago, and there are certainly more products available to experiment with, but the basic principles of good brewing water have remained largely unchanged.
Below is a summary of the information you’ll find in this post.
What Water Should You Be Using to Brew Coffee?
The water you use should taste good to you. If you do not enjoy drinking the water by itself, there is a good chance you won’t enjoy the coffee brewed with it either.
There are easy ways to experiment with water chemistry without breaking out beakers and test tubes. Third Wave Water remains my top recommendation. It is a mineral packet that you add to a gallon of distilled water to create water specifically formulated for brewing coffee.
You can also make your own version of coffee water by adding 0.75 grams of Epsom salt and 0.26 grams of baking soda to a gallon of distilled water (credit to Tinker Coffee for this coffee water recipe).
In general, hard water is often better than very soft water for manual brewing methods. Espresso is a different story, and excessively hard water should be avoided in espresso machines because of scale buildup.
Distilled water and reverse osmosis water without minerals added back in are not good for brewing coffee on their own. These types of water lack the minerals that help extract flavor from coffee
Bottled water is another option, but not all bottled waters are created equal. . Crystal Geyser remains one of the most commonly recommended and widely available bottled waters for coffee brewing.
What Water Am I using in my coffee? (June 2026)
So what water have I settled on for my coffee brewing?
Honestly, I mostly use gallon purified drinking water from Aldi.
Since writing the original version of this article, I have moved and now live in a home with a private well. While I have had some excellent cups of coffee brewed with well water, the water at my current house is not ideal for coffee.
The Aldi water produces coffee that I enjoy, and it is inexpensive, consistent, and easy to find. As a result, I rarely stray from it.
If I want to make sure I am getting the absolute best out of a particular coffee, I still opt for Third Wave Water. It is a product I am familiar with, one that I trust, and one that has consistently produced excellent results for me over the years.
I am interested in trying some of the newer coffee water products that I have been seeing around, but so far I haven’t felt much need to move away from a system that already works well for me.
Below are some basic principles and ideas about coffee brewing water. If you think you have a water problem or simply want to learn more about the topic, keep reading.
Continue reading
Recent Comments