Yorkshire tea ... one for Bill maybe

Far enough for the MPs?

No. Although Thames water is reckoned to be recycled 5 times before reaching the sea!

There's no myth like an old myth - though when I was a lad Londoners usually put it more explicitly on the lines of "that water's probably been through [N]* sets of kidneys before yours".

It's the cockneys that are annoying.

Large proportions of Yorkshire have quite soft water it is only up in the limestone dales and Derbyshire that the water is very hard.

Today large parts of Norht Yorkshire actually get their water from the Kielder reservoir in Northumberland built to serve the cooling water needs of the now non-existent iron works on Teesside.

Two sorts available as others have said.

It makes an even bigger difference for coffees. It turns out that for them to be optimally made requires exactly the right amount of hardness or it tastes too bitter (excessive hardness) or insipid (too soft).

Water hardness critically affects the free alkaloids in the drink as well as the insoluble calcium scum that forms on the top.

Interesting, do the big chains (Costa etc) try to supply a consistent product?

I went to a lecture on the chemistry of coffee at Newcastle University where unusually the audience were able to participate in a controlled tasting starting with deionised water and working up in hardness. The lecture was held in a bar since no eating or drinking is permitted in lecture theatres. One chemist and one top barrista doing it.

Starbucks is notorious for burning the beans to an inch of their life and making the tarry stuff up with deionised water. The taste is characteristic and best suited to the rubbish thin US coffee.

Couldn't find the same diagram online but this one is close:

You can't draw water because it's transparent.

Bill

Perhaps _you_ can't - my sister is an artist, and she draws water beautifully...

No she draws the interface between the water and the atmosphere.

Bill

How do you tell it's raining, then, without going outside?

I use an app on my iphone ;-P

I'll tell her that. Maybe.

Not been much use recently. ;-)

I live in Scotland.

In June, July and August I simply wear a less heavy coat.

Owain

In my case I can hear it on the metal decking roof long before I can see it falling by looking out the window.

I can draw curtains....

Tim

I can draw conclusions - usually the wrong ones! :)

According to the latest Amazon ads you ask Alexa.

Richard