Do you buy or do you boil? If you buy, do you get the local or the import? Pure water or mineral water? If you boil, how long do you let it boil? I hear you should let it boil for at least 3 minutes so you’ll get rid of the chlorine. What about the newfangled desalinated ocean water that’s popping up in grocery stores? Has anyone ever tried it? Is that good for you?
I have a water filter and usually do not boil the water that comes from it unless I want hot water. Buy bottled water? Forget it.
But I live in metropolitan Taipei. If I lived in Gaoxiong, I might take a different approach.
I used to boil tap water or buy bottled. These days, I’m just as likely to drink it straight from one of those Brita filter jugs, although the wife refuses to. I don’t recall ever getting sick off it.
Water from the tea kettle poured into a Brita filter jug. Never been sick.
I think I’ve been here too long, the same topics keep popping up 
Here are some older threads:
forums.segue.com.tw/viewtopic.php?t=2696
forums.segue.com.tw/viewtopic.php?t=5079
forums.segue.com.tw/viewtopic.php?t=5942
If anybody cares to know, I boil my water in the water heater and then use it for drinking, making ice, watering the plants and feeding the cat.
HTH
Iris
I get my water now straight from the reservoir trough in my de-humidifier. Filtered purity. The wife refuses to touch it but the cats will join me.
Bottled and bottled only, and then just brands that I’m sure I can trust. I’d never touch a drop from the tap, boiled or otherwise.
I’m with Omni on this one. Bottled and bottled only.
Although I’m pretty sure that some restaurants use tap water to make ice… can’t do anything about that though. :?
Boiled for about 2 minutes for the past 10+ years simply becuase I usually don’t get around to turning it off. I believe the government line that Taipei water is safe but I don’t trust the pipes or my water tank.
Boiling to get rid of chlorine is not very effective. http://www.awwa.org/science/sun/qom/qom0301.cfm
If you want to get rid of the taste, use a Brita or spring for a distillation device(they take a long time and lots of electricity to make your water, however). I love my Brita and am considering getting a 2 gallon family-sized one.
I use tap water in my hot water boiler thingy, for tea, coffee, etc, and drink spring water. Careful with some of the local bottled waters since they’re really not that much better than tap. I prefer the imported kind. It cost a bit more, but it does taste better generally.
I got a new water machine recently. It’s great because it’s got ice-water as well as boiling and luke-warm.
If you drink bottled water, you should know that a test a couple of years ago, failed nearly all brands on safety. Apart from Evian, the only safe brand that you commonly see is ‘duo he shui’ in Chinese witha tiny little English ‘More’ on the bottle (black and white).
Brian
How good is a NT$3k filter? Does it beat boining and would you dare to drink it?
How much is a Brita water filter jug in Taiwan (a basic one)? How much are the cartridges ? TIA
Brita is not a good enough filter for healthy drinking water in Taiwan. There is a more advanced filtration process used in labs in Taiwan and overseas called RO filtration. These devices cost between NT$3,000 and NT$9,000. They have to be professionally installed and they work having about 5 or 6 different types of filtering.
I have one of these and drink the water straight from the filter, well actually it goes to my refrigerators water dispenser after leaving the RO system via a small pipe.
I use to have those company use water coolers and the huge jugs delivered 5 at a time to my house. That was nice too and choose the mineral water for the taste.
what’s wrong with the water? know any reliable statistics?
Volvic, Perrier, Evion
As Iris so deftly pointed out earlier, this thread is basically a repeat.
Searching before starting a new thread? What a concept!
Is beer water?
No, only yankee beer.
Good one!
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]As Iris so deftly pointed out earlier, this thread is basically a repeat.
Searching before starting a new thread? What a concept![/quote] When I started this thread, I was mainly interested in learning about the desalinated ocean water. Alas, no one has responded to that yet. 