Rasseru said

Water additives - charcoal, maifan etc

I filter with brita (activated charcoal) but now am thinking about maifan stones for putting minerals back.

Anyone add or take away, generally mess with their water?, and what do you use?

15 Replies
t-curious said

I hadn’t thought about it but I do use carbon filtered water for my tea. I use this filter:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VZ2PI2/

I really can’t tell the difference between sheng made with filtered tap water and spring water from a bottle. I have not tried them side by side though. That’s on my list of things to do. :)

In lieu of maifan stones, would a yixing pot produce a similar taste?

Rasseru said

Pots must impart some flavour (I dont have any clay pots, just porcelain but from what I have heard the do) but I have no idea what the taste is

pkts said

I haven’t tried maifan stones but i have a new yixing pot and so far it seems like it actually mutes the flavour of sheng … maybe it’s still absorbing some of the flavour and needs to be seasoned more ?

Rasseru said

i’m sure someone will chime in with how long it takes to season

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pkts said

Glad you started this !

I also filter my water with Brita but then I let that water sit with charcoal in it and I can say it def makes an additional difference. Actually I first filter with Brita then something else that I think is probably BS but says it alkalizes the water and also removes fluoride. I have a bit of an assembly line of water going, haha. I’m probably pulling out too much good minerals with the filtering so the maifan stones/adding minerals back would be a good idea.

Rasseru said

We need to do some sort of test to see how much difference the maifan changes the taste

Spatulab said

I was looking at Yunnan Sourcing’s bamboo charcoal (https://yunnansourcing.com/products/premium-bamboo-charcoal-for-enhancement-of-water), and it sounds like you can throw the charcoal in the pot. Is that correct? I use an electric kettle.

Rasseru said

Yes, I’ve heard Scott say just that

Rasseru said

Someone in the reviews of those says put them in water for 2-3 hours. I wonder if you need to do that or not

pkts said

I’ve found to be very responsive to emails if you want to ask but I don’t see why you couldn’t do that. That’s the exact one I’m using. I just leave the bamboo charcoal in my water pitcher all the time.

I’d try the maifan stones but not sure who sells them as teawares ?

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Rob said

I’m a absolute convert to Bamboo charcoal water and would certainly recommend it. I put four pieces in water overnight. It makes a big difference in removing the chlorine and chemical taste (I know that just leaving it overnight would aid that too)
The bamboo also removes the metallic flavour. I’m interested in the maifan stone now…. and have just ordered some.

pkts said

Perhaps just my imagination but I also feel it improves the texture of the water. I did a blind taste testing on a friend between it and brita water and they immediately chose the charcoal one haha. Cool…looking forward to your thoughts on the maifan stone. Where did you get them ?

Rob said

Just from Ebay, some stone discs.

Rasseru said

Great, I’m doing this asap when I’m back off holiday. A good cheap addition to the setup

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obritten said

Yeah ironically I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I also have been using bamboo charcoal directly in my kettle and I do think it’s improved the taste/body of the tea. Although, I have started thinking it may be reducing the aromatics. It’s so hard to tell considering the number of variables when making tea.

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