Are you Hard? Or are you a softie?

[pebblethefish]

Inspired by possibly the most tenuously linked advert I've ever seen on my train on the way home "IS YOUR COMMUTE HARD?? We can help soften your water" (I may have got the exact wording wrong, but it was pretty much that)

Anyway, I grew up in a hard water area, and have lived in one all my life. That's what water should taste like, as far as I'm concerned. I remember a holiday to Devon as a small child, where my Mum couldn't work out how to give me drinks, as I refused to drink the water, and therefore any squashes; she refused to give me fizzy drinks; and I was allergic to milk. My brother helpfully tried to solve the quandary by pushing me into the sea in the hope I'd swallow some, but that wasn't helpful.

Anyway, I know all you soft water types will point out the lack of limescale in your kettles, and the lather you get in the shower, but, truthfully, you know hard water tastes nicer, right?

[elguapo4]

I had no idea it tastes different, soft water softie me.

[Benjm]

I'm with you on the taste but limescale is a pain in the arse. Not literally, just to avoid any doubt.

[ad hoc]

Absolutely. Hard water tastes so much better.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The idea that hard water tastes nicer is one that several multibilllion pound industries, like those selling water filters or just bottled "natural spring water", have spent years telling everyone is wrong.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Our water is off the mountains so it's super soft. The contrast to lime and flint North Herts is dramatic, particularly when you wash your hair. I look like Cousin Itt in The Addams Family.

[Balderdasha]

I think I'm quite unusual in that I don't really care, I'll drink most water. In the house I lived in from age 5-18, we had hard water, but my parents had a water softener installed so there was just one tap in the kitchen that dispensed hard 'drinking' water. It took me until I was an adult to realise that I wasn't going to be poisoned if I drank water from any of the other taps, it just tastes slightly different. So now, if I go back to that house to stay overnight with my kids, I fill glasses from the bathroom tap. It drives my mum insane, but if I have to choose between slightly less tasty water, or going all the way down to the kitchen and back up in the middle of the night, less tasty water wins every time. The craziest thing is that my mum also doesn't like walking down to the kitchen in the middle of the night, so she keeps bottled water in her bedroom, which is basically the same as the upstairs tap water, except vastly worse for the planet.

[3 Colours Red]

I'm in one of those in-between areas. Don't have to worry about limescale too much but do have to leave the tap running for a bit before taking a drink from it as it does start coming out rather cloudy. It's still not very nice even after that rigmarole.

That might be more down to Dŵr Cymru's maintenance (or lack of it).

[MsD]

Fucking hard East End water here in Hackney, mate. Throws itself out the fucking tap.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I live in a very hard water area. The limescale is a problem but it does taste nice.

When I used to visit my gran, who lived in a soft water area a few miles down the road from 3CR, I used to drink all her pop so I didn't particularly notice the difference in the taste but the fact that it took ages to get the soap residue of of your hands after you'd washed them was a real pain.

[Patrick Thistle]

Welsh water is best. I don't drink the water in England without boiling it.

[sw2borshch]

Is London water hard? It tastes noticeably manky compared to Middlesbrough water which is apparently soft - I only know that because it was always compared to Hartlepool water which is famously hard. To be fair London is the only place I can ever remember drinking water which is actively unpleasant.

[jwdd27]

Where I live (Huddersfield) is soft.
Where I come from (Scunthorpe) is very hard. Not just hard, very hard.

I actually prefer the taste of the soft Yorkshire Water - there's too much of a "taste" in the super hard Anglian. And I also prefer not having limescale fucking everywhere.

[Nocturnal Submission]

[Fussbudget]

To be fair London is the only place I can ever remember drinking water which is actively unpleasant.

Apart from that cheap bottled water in Bilbao that tasted like washing-up water and chlorine. Horrible.

I've lived in both soft water and hard water places, but I can't say I've ever noticed any difference in the taste.

[Janik]

I grew up drinking hard water. Therefore hard water tastes 'right' and soft water not so. I wouldn't claim the hard water was objectively tastier though - this is entirely subjective.

[Amor de Cosmos]

We were told growing up in Stevenage, that our water had been used six times, just re-filtered and re-sterilized. I couldn't get an answer as to how they knew how many times it'd been used though. I mean there was no one at the end of the drainpipe checking was there? "'Ere Bert that lots only been used five times. Send it back."

[Femme Folle]

The water in Louisiana was very soft and when I visited other parts of the country, the first thing I would notice was that my shampoo wouldn't lather the way it did back home. I also thought it tasted weird. Then I moved up north and got used to the hard water and the soft water down south tasted weird to me when I visited there. The tap water here tastes fine, but I only drink bottled water (I give it to the pets, too). I have a (probably irrational) fear that because I live in a large building with connected water pipes coming from a single source, if someone wanted to maliciously contaminate the water supply, it probably wouldn't be too difficult. Also, stories that have come out of places like Flint, MI and closer to home, Newark, have made me a little fearful of lead contamination. When I have to drink the tap water where I live now, it feels like I'm in a situation where I have a choice of dying of thirst or drinking muddy puddle water.

[Hot Pepsi]

Our water is notoriously hard here. Karst Topography. But that’s ok.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Hard water is better for your heart, so I'm informed by her in the chair next to me.

[ursus arctos]

Presumably from the extra exercise one gets from trying to work up a lather

[ursus arctos]

Milan's water is very hard and notoriously hard on plumbing and appliances.

No one who can afford not to drinks it.

[Incandenza]

It's something that I never paid attention to before and couldn't tell the difference, until Mrs. Inca got a water softening unit for our house. Now when we go on vacation and we stay at a place with hard water I can barely stand it.

[Hugh Fatbastard]

Is everyone drawing from a municipal supply? I find it curious that any treated water would be hard. My experience is for city water to be soft, and hard water generally comes straight from the ground, ie a well. We're on a well system and use a softener. We get in those big jugs of water for drinking, and happily rent our hot water tank as it needs replacing every 5 or 6 years.

[Sporting]

I don't particularly like water but will always go for the tap option. I tend to think that bottled water is an expensive con.