95 Percent is All You Need, With Water

It Smells Better Than It Taste — a quiet coffee newsletter where I share what I’m learning about coffee, curiosity, and daily rituals, this channel is an extension of that space: https://www.itsmellsbetterthanittaste.com/ Your water might be the one thing quietly ruining — or quietly holding back — your coffee, and most of us just aren't paying attention to it. In this experiment from the Coffee Mastery series, I brew the exact same coffee four different ways using tap water, distilled water, Third Wave Water, and my own DIY water mix — same ratio, same brewer, same grind — and taste every single one to see how water PPM and mineral chemistry actually shows up in the cup. Here's what this experiment covers: Why water PPM and mineral content change the body, sweetness, and acidity of your brew A side-by-side taste comparison of tap (254 PPM), distilled, Third Wave Water (163 PPM), and a DIY mix (110–120 PPM) Why tap water can taste chalky and heavy — and how to fix it without spending a lot How to mix your own brew water for about $10 and get 95% of the way to optimized When Third Wave Water is great and when you should dilute it further Drop a comment below — have you ever experimented with your water? Do you use tap, spring, or something else? Let me know what difference you noticed, or if this is your first time thinking about it. Timestamps: 00:00 — Intro and experiment setup 00:39 — Brew parameters (April Brewer, 1:15 ratio, 30-second bloom) 01:07 — Tasting begins 01:48 — Tap water tasting 02:05 — Distilled water tasting 02:28 — Third Wave Water tasting