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 The
Chinese people are very picky when they are choosing the water for
tea. For example, it is long believed that the HuPao Spring in
HangZhou city is the best match for the famous LongJing Teain the
same area. The LongJing tea and HuPao Spring are called "the Double
Tiptop" by the Chinese people. Another famous MengDing tea requires
water from the Yangzi River. The ancient Chinese people reckoned
that if a best tea met a ordinary water, the tea would become
ordinary too, however, when the ordinary tea met the best water, the
tea would become much better.
There are three major principles to choose water for tea. First, the
water must taste sweet. That mean there must be no bitter or strange
taste of the water. The artist emperor Zhao Jie (1082-1135 AD) in
the Song Dynasty wrote a tea book "Da Guan Cha Lun". In this book he
said the best water should be fresh, clean, sweet and light. Another
calligrapher Cai Xiang said if the water was not sweet it would
compromise the taste of the tea in his book "Cha Lu".
 Second,
the water must
be fresh and clean. Zhang Yuan in Ming Dynasty reckoned that the
spring on hill top was fresh and light, the spring on hill side was
fresh and heavy, the spring in the rocks was fresh and sweet, the
spring in the sands was fresh and cold, and the spring in the earth
was mild. The spring came out of yellow stone was the best, and the
spring came out of green or blue stones was useless. Freshness is an
essential character of water.
The third principle, there must be a proper method to preserve the
water. Many people thought that the water would
become rotten by touching wood containers, and by putting stone in
water would keep it fresh. The container should be opened at night,
exposed to the stars on the sky. Sunshine will exhaust the freshness
and sweetness of the water.
The typical tea water comes from natural resource, such as spring
water from mountains, brook water, river water, well
water, rain or snow.
 The
Tea Saint Lu Yu thought the best water was mountain spring, river
water next, followed by well water. For the spring
water, the slower the water flew, the better it was for making tea.
Of course, not all the natural water can be used for tea. Some
spring or well have very low quality water, especially when there is
too much sulfur in the water. Lots of river water must be purified
before drinking.
Precipitation is another fashion to make tea. In the great Chinese
literature masterpiece "Hong Lou Meng", the dissolute nun Miao Yu
collected snow from plum blossom, kept it only for the best friends.
This plot has been well-known by all Chinese people.
 According
to modern study, the pH value and mineral components are related to
the quality of the tea soup. High pH value will cause a darker color
of the tea soup. When the lead is more than 0.2 ppm in the water,
the tea will become bitter; when the magnesium concentration is more
than 2 ppm, the tea will be too mild; too much calcium (more than 2
ppm) will make the tea astringent and bitter. Therefore soft water
is better than hard water to make tea.
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