Water that tastes good: infused water and flavours without sugar

Why water often tastes of “nothing”

Water has a taste of its own that comes from the dissolved minerals. Very soft water seems flat, very hard water slightly bitter or chalky, and chlorinated water smells like a swimming pool. If you do not like your tap water, you can chill it, let it stand briefly (the chlorine escapes) or simply flavour it.

The classics

• Lemon or lime: two slices per litre, fresh and invigorating. Also good warm in the morning.
• Cucumber and mint: a quarter of a cucumber in slices and five mint leaves, the spa water for hot days.
• Ginger: three thin slices, slightly spicy, good with lemon.
• Berries: a handful of raspberries or strawberries, lightly pressed, colours the water beautifully.
• Orange and rosemary: a sprig of rosemary turns orange into a winter drink.
• Apple and cinnamon: apple slices and a cinnamon stick, left to infuse for at least four hours.

How to do it properly

Wash the fruit, cut it into slices, put it in a carafe, top up with cold water and leave it to infuse in the fridge for two to four hours. Replace it after 24 hours at the latest, because fruit in water starts to ferment. Use organic citrus fruit if the peel goes into the water, or peel it off.

Sparkling water as a flavour carrier

Carbonation carries aromas better than still water. A soda maker and a squeeze of lemon are, for many people, the bridge from lemonade to water. What the soda maker costs is worked out by the Soda maker cost calculator.

What you should leave out

Syrups and “water enhancers” are sugar water or sweetener water in a small bottle. Fruit juice in water is fine if it stays at a splash. The aim remains that water is the main drink and flavour the exception, not the other way round.