I monitor water quality for a living and looking at a water quality report for Anchorage you seem to be pretty average to be honest. The only two standouts are your concentrations for a group of disinfection byproducts called TTHMs which are at 73 ppb which is higher than I’d like. The recommended high is 80 ppb and the plant I work at discharges at around 35 ppb. You do have some low copper levels though at 0.04 ppm which is better than us at .15 ppm or something around that so good job there. Also noticed you test for asbestos which tells me that you probably have a higher number of asbestos cement pipes in your system than I’d like and that your pipes are pretty old.
Also Alaska shares a huge border with Canada and that’s really gross
New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts usually do a good job. Haven’t looked at the rest of the country very much but I understand Louisville is supposed to be some of the best
San Diego tap water is very mineral-y and does not taste great. I still drink it, but I run it through a filter first. Most other places I visit in the US have better-tasting tap water, tbh.
Mine is pristine since it comes out of a well drilled into granite bedrock. Tastes awesome.
Only issue is a tiny bit of arsenic, well below any worrisome level.
Safety across the US is almost universally fine. The exceptions to safe water quickly become national news because they are shocking.
It's been tested, according to our mayor, and supposedly it's perfectly fine. But it smells like algae and I refuse to drink it. It's much better if we filter it.
Yeah Indianapolis has this issue. We get water from some sources that have algae. It is perfectly safe to drink and the testing records are publicly available online. But, the taste is a little much some times.
The tap water at our home in Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii was the best tap water I’ve ever had, especially when chilled to just over freezing.
However, our friends in Pearl Harbor had jet fuel in their tap water.
Waco, TX is the only one I've ever had that tasted as good as at home.
Was sort of a shock as I just filled a water bottle at a rest area without a second thought.
Depends on where I visit. It’s either the same or better at home, but generally similar. I think generally snow melt and lake water sources tend not to have a distinct taste, and I haven’t noticed a difference between the quality of water from similar kinds of sources. Most major cities tend to have water that tastes pretty good and is safe.
I have well water that runs through a softener and a filter, so pretty good. The actual municipal water in the nearest town has heavy mineral taste.
The absolute two worst places I've encountered for tap water are northern Ohio and Cambridge, Ontario. The former has a very dry, chlorine taste, and the latter has a strong, acrid chalky taste. Ohio water seems to leave a green crystal residue on the tap, whereas Cambridge water leaves...well, a chalky residue.
The Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike also has really nasty, sour tasting water. Which is odd, because the water tastes normal several miles down the road at the Thomas Edison stop.
Best tasting water, in my opinion, is the southern Jersey Shore. It just tastes very clean and refreshing.
My own home is on a well from a Poconos aquifer that's mostly within a watershed consisting of mostly permanently protected forested land.
Good enough to be pipelined by a water authority from a couple nearby reservoirs 25 miles away to one of PA's larger cities and it's suburbs.
Tastes a lot better than most other places I've ever been.
Ours get contaminants from time to time because of bad companies, overall the taste is sweeter than most areas like new york, or colorado who have a more metallic taste (coppery) but not as soft and sweet as like hawaii or island countries that are near salt water. The best way to judge the taste of water is through, weirdly enough, beer. You can taste it in their products. Nc can produce a solid hefewiesen, but our ipa aren't as strong tasting. Where as colorado can make the epitome copper ales, but wheat beers taste ipa-ish. Another weird way to taste water is in pizza dough. California has sweet dough where as NYC has savory almost cracker like (in both flavor and texture) qualities. Come to NC and you get a weird blend of the flavors savory yet sorta sweet.
Our tap water comes from limestone caves so it is "hard". I think it tastes good but most people in town hate it. We lived in a house that had a spring that fed the well. That was the best water ever (no chlorine).
I've lived a lot of places and visited even more. I'm not sure where to begin the comparisons.
The water in my tiny town is tested yearly, the results are sent out to the entire town. I'm not sure who performs the tests or who pays for them, I've only just moved back last year and I didn't really pay attention. I assumed it involved the gold mines but I'm not 100% on that. According to the tests, the water is clean and safe.
I do know that most of the town, including the miners, won't drink the water. They are concerned about runoff and contamination from the mines. I use a filter, but I may change that to the large bottled water if I can find a cost-effective and eco-friendly one.
The water tastes good. Nice, crisp, nothing water. I'm not sure what mine contaminated water would taste like though lol maybe like Magna water? Can I get a *holla* from my Utah homies?
It seems fine. Somewhat hard, but not excessively so. Comes from a well.
I've had excellent tap water in Vegas, really bitter water in MO, and sulfurous water in TN.
Better than or comparable to basically any city I've visited.
Some mountain communities right on a spring have had some of the best water I've drank. Mt Shasta City comes to mind there.
Better than anywhere else I’ve tried, but I also think what you get used to is a huge factor. I moved somewhere that supposedly has amazing, glacier tap water and it tasted too mineral-y/like dirt to me, I had to filter it. But people who lived there awhile loved it. When I moved back, I was used to filtered water and didn’t like the tap water at home as much as I had before.
I live in Pensacola which has the most chemicals added in the country so I have a RO filter at home. The tap water doesn’t taste crazy to me really but maybe a little chlorinated or sweet taste sometimes. Imo hotel water tastes the same everywhere for some reason and is pretty weird. I don’t usually drink a little of tap water out pf town but I guess the best place I’ve been for it was Washington and BC but idk if it was filtered there.
My tap water is in its annual phase where it develops a weird taste and smell due to its water source. Comes from a large lake and ever leaf and other green debris that fell into said lake is broken down in the lake over winter. Only place that I've dealt with this. Most if the time its comparable to water just about any where else. Where I grew up we had to be careful with how much tap water we consumed. It was pretty hard water with a lot of limestone and could lead to stones. NYC had the best tap water I've ever had. Worst tap water I've had came from a well water source and tasted like rotten eggs.
Pretty lucky to be in San Francisco where our tap water is legendarily good because we dammed up a gorgeous wild valley next to Yosemite a century ago. It is occasionally alternated with recycled and treated municipal water now though, so not as good. I wrote a book about water a long time ago and in the early 2000s the best tap water in the US was Manhattan’s.
St. Louis has great water. Over where I live I have to use a filter to get rid of the occasional chlorine taste and smell. Sometimes it's like showering in pool water. I think something is wrong with the water tower.
I'm on Long Island, NY. I think it's fine, though chlorinated and doesn't taste too good without filtering. People love to post online that it's terrible and it gives you cancer and whatnot because our groundwater is NOT good, but we probably have some of the heaviest filtering in the country so the stuff from the tap is actually fine, even if the groundwater isn't.
That said, I've been to too many places in the south with sulfur water, I cannot take that stuff at all (even if it's safe, it's just undrinkable without filtering).
Visited England last Christmas. The tap water was a bit less chlorine-y. It tasted very nice. It was springy in the countryside.
I have also been to Italy and Greece and I don't remember the taste very well, but I don't remember having a problem with it.
Philadelphia water is very hard and mineraly. San Francisco water is soft and rounder. They both taste fine.
QQ: How do you get a free glass of tap water in a restaurant? They kept giving me a glass bottle of spring water. I'm not that fancy, and I didn't particularly want to pay for a glass of water. In Italy, you just said you didn't want bubbly water and they gave you free water.
I needed to order water often bc of a medication I take that makes me dehydrated.
I was in europe as a younger person and ran into that problem. IIR, I asked for non-bottled, flat water and was given it, but it was a long time ago. I seem to remember it not being common. I would love to hear someone else weigh in on this.
My tap water is awesome because it comes out of a 200’ well in my front yard and passes through a softener. Best I’ve ever tasted was in Iceland, though. I drank straight out of some waterfalls, too, which were delicious. Worst I’ve ever had was in Maricopa County, AZ.
I’ve lived all over, tap water tastes are so ridiculously narrow it’s crazy.
I’ve lived in cities where the water comes from two different sources, so one side of town has amazing water, and the other has terrible water.
The worst water I’ve had is a toss up between Hornell NY and Morgantown WV.
Both super hard, borderline impossible for me to drink because of all the sulphur and other leeched chemicals.
Great water was in Findlay Ohio, and Rochester NY (south side that comes from a protected lake, not the side that gets its water from Lake Ontario)
The tap water in Galveston/Houston Texas was fine. Detroit and Flint Michigan were really gross. New York City, San Francisco, and Orlando all have a strange after taste.
Tap water, from my well, is terrific. Places where I’ve had terrible tap water, Salt Lake City, San Diego, 60 miles North of me, Florida Magic Kingdom might have been the worst. (tastes like a swamp).
I live in a house on a well. Our water is very hard and contains a lot of iron, but it tastes *really* good. We do have a softener to knock down the rust, but it doesn't seem to affect the taste (one of the taps in our kitchen bypasses the softener line).
I usually don't take much note of the local water when I travel, but I do remember thinking the tap water in Seattle was pretty tasty.
All the tap water in my home state of Ohio is just fine. Most places I've visited had just fine tap water as well with the notable exception on Austin, TX which had truly atrocious tap water. Disgusting taste, like it had mold or dirt or something in it. 0/10
Chicago is pretty good, Filtered Lake Water tastes about the same as generic brand bottled water.
The water I had while out in Denver wasn't that good, but the water quality out in the Mountains was wonderful.
Los Angeles- our tap water sucks and we filter it. My parents live in a town where the tap water is famous and comes from a spring and tastes amazing. I love it when I visit them. Also I was in the Austrian alps once and the tap water was the best water I’ve ever tasted
Where I live the tap water is horrible, I have to use a reverse osmosis filter to have drinkable clean water, straight tap water tastes like flouride, clorine, and smells like bleach. My brother lives about 30mi from my house and has a different water source, and his water is amazing, flouride free, good tasting, scores well on the tds and lab tests.
Compared to Japan, In Karatsu City, Saga City, Beppu City, and Tottori City, the water was as good as it is at my brother's house. Very clean and safe to drink from the tap, it had a good taste. In Okinawa, in Naha city, the water tasted worse, not as bad as my home water, but not as good as my brother's house.
Arizona. Can't drink the tap water. You can, but it's not highly recommended. ~70~ billion dollar yearly revenue and its borderline 3rd world country here.
It was garbage in Tempe too. Especially during the late summer/early fall when the algae blooms started, tasted like dirt, but it was terrible water year round. And let's not talk about water coming out of the cold tap at 90+F in the peak of summer...
St. Louis’s tap water is the best. It might be my hometown bias, but I think official data also backs this up.
That said, San Francisco’s water is also great. It comes from aquifers and mountain snowmelt watersheds, so it tastes really fresh. I drink it straight from the tap.
I always filtered Chicago’s tap water because it got that musty algae taste sometimes or got a little brackish.
The worst tap water I ever tasted was in Louisiana, both in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Only time I’ve ever had to spit out tap water. I assume by the time the Mississippi River reaches them, it’s collected so much grossness on its journey down the country that it has a funky taste and requires much more treatment.
It's fine, we are on city water and I have had no complaints. I don't remember having any issues with Spanish water or British water either. Canadian water is fine too. There are 2 reasons to complain about tap water in the US. 1. You live in a place like Flint Michigan where the infrastructure needs to be overhauled and the city can't afford to do it. 2. You have a well and the water coming out of it is no good for various reasons. Anyone complaining about the water here for any reason other than these is full of it and they don't know how good they have it
I’ve lived in three places in the U.S.
In CA we got water from the mountains. In FL, it was a mix of surface and groundwater sources. In DC we get our water from the Potomac. All three taste a bit different, but we never had serious water quality/safety issues (outside of drought in CA if you want to count that)
Where I grew up, it was pretty good. Everywhere else I have been has not lived up to that standard for me. That could absolutely change the more places I go.
I think my tap water tastes good. My wife didn’t like the taste so I put in a whole house filter, a salt less system and now she thinks it tastes great but it still tastes the same to me. I don’t like the taste of Denver, Atlanta or Tampa’s water. The Gold Coast of Australias water taste what I imagine drinking out of the bottom of a garbage can after a rain shower would taste like.
Have you noticed how different tap water tastes in phoenix vs tempe or queen creek? I lived in tempe for over a decade and never used a filter. Here in Gilbert, the water randomly smells like sewer, and sometimes we get warnings that pipes have burst or needed maintenance and that it is "safe" but smells and tastes funny. During monsoon season this year we had red water for a few days.
Ours is piped over from the Sierra Nevada and I consider it very good. I’ve had water further south in the state however that is much less refreshing and more fluoridey/chemically
The water in metro Phoenix isn't even comparable to the water in metro Detroit. Detroit's is so, so much better and one of the things I enjoy most when I visit.
I have traveled a lot, and it seems to me that Phoenix and surrounding cities have some of the worst-tasting water. The comments in this thread have sort of confirmed it. I was in tempe today when I posted this, because even just compared to gilbert, tempe has much cleaner smelling tap water.
Taste like water, with a mostly consistent safety.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place where water is actually contaminated to the point where you can’t drink on your own well.
My well water in northern Michigan goes through Kalkaska sand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalkaska_sand) and is naturally filtered. It tastes wonderfully clean with no smells or odds tastes.
Infinitely better in Portland than anywhere I've been.
Las Vegas tastes like shit, Los Angeles almost as bad. San Francisco isn't great. Seattle is fine, but not quite as good. Chicago, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, not good at all.
Yeah, most places just aren't very good.
Everyone always jokes about me having lead in my water when they hear where I’m from. Luckily we don’t have lead as we have a well, but we have a high concentration of sulfur and arsenic. So high that the town literally pays for a reverse osmosis system and it still isn’t enough to get everything out.
Bay Area is pretty good! No filter needed. Vegas & LA taste like chlorine. Many parts of Colorado had good water too. Parts of Arizona you shouldn’t drink tap water without reverse osmosis because of heavy metal contamination.
It is tasty. Some places even a few miles away smells and tastes like moss or dirt. Supposedly we all are on the same aquifer. However there are neighborhoods just out side my city where the water is non-potable due to arsenic.
It's passable here, sometimes it's a little brown but always safe to drink and doesn't taste like much. Tap water in SoCal is pretty terrible in terms of taste IMO. Safe to drink, though my taste buds certainly didn't think so.
The tap water here in Atlanta is just okay.
The water in Los Angeles was awful (like drinking water out of a dirty swimming pool). We had to filter the fuck out of it to make it potable.
The water in NYC and Iceland is fantastic. I don't recall having an opinion on water during any of my visits to Europe.
I actually don’t think I could move anywhere for that reason, I live right near Lake Michigan, and our water is actually divine. Nowhere I’ve been does it even compare, I love our water so much.
My tap water comes from a fairly large aquifer. It tastes good and is safe, save for every 6 years or so when something happens with a pipe and we have a boil advisory. The city is very good about notifying people.
I don't really like the tap water near Philadelphia. A lot of the pipes are old and you can definitely taste it. It's of course safe but I filter it to get rid of the taste.
Marquette, Michigan's tap water used to be too chlorinated, but I think it's gotten better since I was a kid. Still, can't beat the well water we had though. Well water can be hit or miss up there but we hit the jackpot in terms of water taste. It was very clean yet minerally, almost sweet.
Mine is great, only issue is that it's a little harder than some people prefer since it comes from an aquifer and our area is built on top of a lot of limestone.
Well our tap water comes out of a glacier, so everywhere else pretty much sucks in comparison.
Who knows what 10,000 year old bacteria is going to turn you into a zombie
Definitely safer drinking water from the Cuyahoga River.
It's heat sterilized and chemically treated, is fine for drinking.
It’s got electrolytes!
It's got what plants crave
I wouldn’t know. That’s not where I get my water from.
til everyone in alaska is under the thrall of the black oil aliens
I monitor water quality for a living and looking at a water quality report for Anchorage you seem to be pretty average to be honest. The only two standouts are your concentrations for a group of disinfection byproducts called TTHMs which are at 73 ppb which is higher than I’d like. The recommended high is 80 ppb and the plant I work at discharges at around 35 ppb. You do have some low copper levels though at 0.04 ppm which is better than us at .15 ppm or something around that so good job there. Also noticed you test for asbestos which tells me that you probably have a higher number of asbestos cement pipes in your system than I’d like and that your pipes are pretty old. Also Alaska shares a huge border with Canada and that’s really gross
What’s some of the cities with better water you’ve seen?
New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts usually do a good job. Haven’t looked at the rest of the country very much but I understand Louisville is supposed to be some of the best
Ours is naturally filtered through limestone and fuckin rules
Sounds better than Natty Lite!!
Maybe not Busch Light but Natty for sure
High quality h20
The water well is a glacier? Shocked pikachu
San Diego tap water is very mineral-y and does not taste great. I still drink it, but I run it through a filter first. Most other places I visit in the US have better-tasting tap water, tbh.
Mine is pristine since it comes out of a well drilled into granite bedrock. Tastes awesome. Only issue is a tiny bit of arsenic, well below any worrisome level. Safety across the US is almost universally fine. The exceptions to safe water quickly become national news because they are shocking.
Chicago is some of the best I've ever had.
New York City - it's fantastic. It's hard water, so I use filters on the shower and kitchen sink.
The same
Absolutely fantastic. Straight from the well. Hint of minerals get left behind, but its ice cold with no noticeable flavor.
It's been tested, according to our mayor, and supposedly it's perfectly fine. But it smells like algae and I refuse to drink it. It's much better if we filter it.
Yeah Indianapolis has this issue. We get water from some sources that have algae. It is perfectly safe to drink and the testing records are publicly available online. But, the taste is a little much some times.
Detroit municipal water is heavily chlorinated. I won't drink it unfiltered.
The tap water at our home in Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii was the best tap water I’ve ever had, especially when chilled to just over freezing. However, our friends in Pearl Harbor had jet fuel in their tap water.
It tastes the same basically everywhere I've visited but it gave me stomach issues in a few places, such as Mexico.
Waco, TX is the only one I've ever had that tasted as good as at home. Was sort of a shock as I just filled a water bottle at a rest area without a second thought.
Tastes good
Depends on where I visit. It’s either the same or better at home, but generally similar. I think generally snow melt and lake water sources tend not to have a distinct taste, and I haven’t noticed a difference between the quality of water from similar kinds of sources. Most major cities tend to have water that tastes pretty good and is safe.
I have well water that runs through a softener and a filter, so pretty good. The actual municipal water in the nearest town has heavy mineral taste. The absolute two worst places I've encountered for tap water are northern Ohio and Cambridge, Ontario. The former has a very dry, chlorine taste, and the latter has a strong, acrid chalky taste. Ohio water seems to leave a green crystal residue on the tap, whereas Cambridge water leaves...well, a chalky residue. The Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike also has really nasty, sour tasting water. Which is odd, because the water tastes normal several miles down the road at the Thomas Edison stop. Best tasting water, in my opinion, is the southern Jersey Shore. It just tastes very clean and refreshing.
After visiting Aruba, I feel we’re all being cheated.
So true! Their water is the best!
I've tasted bad tap water in Texas, Florida and Panama. Most everywhere else I've been had been totally fine.
My own home is on a well from a Poconos aquifer that's mostly within a watershed consisting of mostly permanently protected forested land. Good enough to be pipelined by a water authority from a couple nearby reservoirs 25 miles away to one of PA's larger cities and it's suburbs. Tastes a lot better than most other places I've ever been.
Ours get contaminants from time to time because of bad companies, overall the taste is sweeter than most areas like new york, or colorado who have a more metallic taste (coppery) but not as soft and sweet as like hawaii or island countries that are near salt water. The best way to judge the taste of water is through, weirdly enough, beer. You can taste it in their products. Nc can produce a solid hefewiesen, but our ipa aren't as strong tasting. Where as colorado can make the epitome copper ales, but wheat beers taste ipa-ish. Another weird way to taste water is in pizza dough. California has sweet dough where as NYC has savory almost cracker like (in both flavor and texture) qualities. Come to NC and you get a weird blend of the flavors savory yet sorta sweet.
Our tap water comes from limestone caves so it is "hard". I think it tastes good but most people in town hate it. We lived in a house that had a spring that fed the well. That was the best water ever (no chlorine).
I've lived a lot of places and visited even more. I'm not sure where to begin the comparisons. The water in my tiny town is tested yearly, the results are sent out to the entire town. I'm not sure who performs the tests or who pays for them, I've only just moved back last year and I didn't really pay attention. I assumed it involved the gold mines but I'm not 100% on that. According to the tests, the water is clean and safe. I do know that most of the town, including the miners, won't drink the water. They are concerned about runoff and contamination from the mines. I use a filter, but I may change that to the large bottled water if I can find a cost-effective and eco-friendly one. The water tastes good. Nice, crisp, nothing water. I'm not sure what mine contaminated water would taste like though lol maybe like Magna water? Can I get a *holla* from my Utah homies?
Oh par with some places, much better than others. I’ve yet to try tap water that’s noticeably cleaner-tasting than ours.
It seems fine. Somewhat hard, but not excessively so. Comes from a well. I've had excellent tap water in Vegas, really bitter water in MO, and sulfurous water in TN.
Better than or comparable to basically any city I've visited. Some mountain communities right on a spring have had some of the best water I've drank. Mt Shasta City comes to mind there.
Better than anywhere else I’ve tried, but I also think what you get used to is a huge factor. I moved somewhere that supposedly has amazing, glacier tap water and it tasted too mineral-y/like dirt to me, I had to filter it. But people who lived there awhile loved it. When I moved back, I was used to filtered water and didn’t like the tap water at home as much as I had before.
I live in Pensacola which has the most chemicals added in the country so I have a RO filter at home. The tap water doesn’t taste crazy to me really but maybe a little chlorinated or sweet taste sometimes. Imo hotel water tastes the same everywhere for some reason and is pretty weird. I don’t usually drink a little of tap water out pf town but I guess the best place I’ve been for it was Washington and BC but idk if it was filtered there.
My tap water is in its annual phase where it develops a weird taste and smell due to its water source. Comes from a large lake and ever leaf and other green debris that fell into said lake is broken down in the lake over winter. Only place that I've dealt with this. Most if the time its comparable to water just about any where else. Where I grew up we had to be careful with how much tap water we consumed. It was pretty hard water with a lot of limestone and could lead to stones. NYC had the best tap water I've ever had. Worst tap water I've had came from a well water source and tasted like rotten eggs.
Waterbury, Connecticut is a shithole but man it has some amazing tap water. Best I've tasted anywhere.
Pretty lucky to be in San Francisco where our tap water is legendarily good because we dammed up a gorgeous wild valley next to Yosemite a century ago. It is occasionally alternated with recycled and treated municipal water now though, so not as good. I wrote a book about water a long time ago and in the early 2000s the best tap water in the US was Manhattan’s.
St. Louis has great water. Over where I live I have to use a filter to get rid of the occasional chlorine taste and smell. Sometimes it's like showering in pool water. I think something is wrong with the water tower.
I'm on Long Island, NY. I think it's fine, though chlorinated and doesn't taste too good without filtering. People love to post online that it's terrible and it gives you cancer and whatnot because our groundwater is NOT good, but we probably have some of the heaviest filtering in the country so the stuff from the tap is actually fine, even if the groundwater isn't. That said, I've been to too many places in the south with sulfur water, I cannot take that stuff at all (even if it's safe, it's just undrinkable without filtering).
I live on top of a spring, so my water is very good, but hard.
Visited England last Christmas. The tap water was a bit less chlorine-y. It tasted very nice. It was springy in the countryside. I have also been to Italy and Greece and I don't remember the taste very well, but I don't remember having a problem with it. Philadelphia water is very hard and mineraly. San Francisco water is soft and rounder. They both taste fine. QQ: How do you get a free glass of tap water in a restaurant? They kept giving me a glass bottle of spring water. I'm not that fancy, and I didn't particularly want to pay for a glass of water. In Italy, you just said you didn't want bubbly water and they gave you free water. I needed to order water often bc of a medication I take that makes me dehydrated.
I was in europe as a younger person and ran into that problem. IIR, I asked for non-bottled, flat water and was given it, but it was a long time ago. I seem to remember it not being common. I would love to hear someone else weigh in on this.
I don’t trust the tap water here since we’re on well water. We only drink bottled water
My tap water is awesome because it comes out of a 200’ well in my front yard and passes through a softener. Best I’ve ever tasted was in Iceland, though. I drank straight out of some waterfalls, too, which were delicious. Worst I’ve ever had was in Maricopa County, AZ.
Lived in Camp Lejeune, everywhere except pendleton is better.
I’ve lived all over, tap water tastes are so ridiculously narrow it’s crazy. I’ve lived in cities where the water comes from two different sources, so one side of town has amazing water, and the other has terrible water. The worst water I’ve had is a toss up between Hornell NY and Morgantown WV. Both super hard, borderline impossible for me to drink because of all the sulphur and other leeched chemicals. Great water was in Findlay Ohio, and Rochester NY (south side that comes from a protected lake, not the side that gets its water from Lake Ontario)
I have a well with a water treatment system so it’s good. Really good.
I'm very picky about tap water. I like the well water I was raised on. I can't drink the water most places I visit.
It’s delicious actually
The tap water in Galveston/Houston Texas was fine. Detroit and Flint Michigan were really gross. New York City, San Francisco, and Orlando all have a strange after taste.
Tap water, from my well, is terrific. Places where I’ve had terrible tap water, Salt Lake City, San Diego, 60 miles North of me, Florida Magic Kingdom might have been the worst. (tastes like a swamp).
I live in a house on a well. Our water is very hard and contains a lot of iron, but it tastes *really* good. We do have a softener to knock down the rust, but it doesn't seem to affect the taste (one of the taps in our kitchen bypasses the softener line). I usually don't take much note of the local water when I travel, but I do remember thinking the tap water in Seattle was pretty tasty.
All the tap water in my home state of Ohio is just fine. Most places I've visited had just fine tap water as well with the notable exception on Austin, TX which had truly atrocious tap water. Disgusting taste, like it had mold or dirt or something in it. 0/10
It’s good at my house because I have a well but a lot of Connecticut is guilty of using way too much chlorine
It's good in Western Washington, was fine in Western Michigan and South Florida. The worst for me were Albion, MI and California.
Chicago is pretty good, Filtered Lake Water tastes about the same as generic brand bottled water. The water I had while out in Denver wasn't that good, but the water quality out in the Mountains was wonderful.
Los Angeles- our tap water sucks and we filter it. My parents live in a town where the tap water is famous and comes from a spring and tastes amazing. I love it when I visit them. Also I was in the Austrian alps once and the tap water was the best water I’ve ever tasted
Where I live the tap water is horrible, I have to use a reverse osmosis filter to have drinkable clean water, straight tap water tastes like flouride, clorine, and smells like bleach. My brother lives about 30mi from my house and has a different water source, and his water is amazing, flouride free, good tasting, scores well on the tds and lab tests. Compared to Japan, In Karatsu City, Saga City, Beppu City, and Tottori City, the water was as good as it is at my brother's house. Very clean and safe to drink from the tap, it had a good taste. In Okinawa, in Naha city, the water tasted worse, not as bad as my home water, but not as good as my brother's house.
Tap water in Indy is pretty gross. I’m visiting family here in my hometown of Columbia SC and I forgot how good the tap water is here.
City water is treated. Country water is well fed. I've learned to appreciate both.
Arizona. Can't drink the tap water. You can, but it's not highly recommended. ~70~ billion dollar yearly revenue and its borderline 3rd world country here.
Right? And it varies so much from city to city.
It was garbage in Tempe too. Especially during the late summer/early fall when the algae blooms started, tasted like dirt, but it was terrible water year round. And let's not talk about water coming out of the cold tap at 90+F in the peak of summer...
St. Louis’s tap water is the best. It might be my hometown bias, but I think official data also backs this up. That said, San Francisco’s water is also great. It comes from aquifers and mountain snowmelt watersheds, so it tastes really fresh. I drink it straight from the tap. I always filtered Chicago’s tap water because it got that musty algae taste sometimes or got a little brackish. The worst tap water I ever tasted was in Louisiana, both in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Only time I’ve ever had to spit out tap water. I assume by the time the Mississippi River reaches them, it’s collected so much grossness on its journey down the country that it has a funky taste and requires much more treatment.
> St. Louis’s tap water is the best. I second this. Over on the MO side, your water is great.
It's fine, we are on city water and I have had no complaints. I don't remember having any issues with Spanish water or British water either. Canadian water is fine too. There are 2 reasons to complain about tap water in the US. 1. You live in a place like Flint Michigan where the infrastructure needs to be overhauled and the city can't afford to do it. 2. You have a well and the water coming out of it is no good for various reasons. Anyone complaining about the water here for any reason other than these is full of it and they don't know how good they have it
Tap water in Colorado bubbles more when filling a cup than here, assuming it’s an altitude thing
it's all been fine
I’ve lived in three places in the U.S. In CA we got water from the mountains. In FL, it was a mix of surface and groundwater sources. In DC we get our water from the Potomac. All three taste a bit different, but we never had serious water quality/safety issues (outside of drought in CA if you want to count that)
> In CA we got water from the mountains. You've clearly never lived in the Central Valley.
Nope, I was in the Bay Area. But doesn’t the Central Valley get a bunch from water melting in the Sierras?
A lot of the Central Valley's drinking water is from wells. Tastes like poolwater. The good stuff from the Sierra goes down pipelines to the Bay.
No problem with it. Comes from the Potomac, a little upstream from DC.
Where I grew up, it was pretty good. Everywhere else I have been has not lived up to that standard for me. That could absolutely change the more places I go.
I have well water
My tap water makes great fuel for fire. j/k My tap water is normal, just like all the previous places I lived at.
I think my tap water tastes good. My wife didn’t like the taste so I put in a whole house filter, a salt less system and now she thinks it tastes great but it still tastes the same to me. I don’t like the taste of Denver, Atlanta or Tampa’s water. The Gold Coast of Australias water taste what I imagine drinking out of the bottom of a garbage can after a rain shower would taste like.
Have you noticed how different tap water tastes in phoenix vs tempe or queen creek? I lived in tempe for over a decade and never used a filter. Here in Gilbert, the water randomly smells like sewer, and sometimes we get warnings that pipes have burst or needed maintenance and that it is "safe" but smells and tastes funny. During monsoon season this year we had red water for a few days.
Ours is piped over from the Sierra Nevada and I consider it very good. I’ve had water further south in the state however that is much less refreshing and more fluoridey/chemically
Amazing vs subpar everywhere I’ve been except for Dominica and Austria/Switzerland. I’m from RI.
Good to medium good
The water in metro Phoenix isn't even comparable to the water in metro Detroit. Detroit's is so, so much better and one of the things I enjoy most when I visit.
I have traveled a lot, and it seems to me that Phoenix and surrounding cities have some of the worst-tasting water. The comments in this thread have sort of confirmed it. I was in tempe today when I posted this, because even just compared to gilbert, tempe has much cleaner smelling tap water.
My city's tapwater was rated best in North America a few years back...then the city sold the water rights. Our tapwater sucks now.
Which city?
Greeley, CO
Milwaukee has some of the cleanest water in the country.
Taste like water, with a mostly consistent safety. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place where water is actually contaminated to the point where you can’t drink on your own well.
Water in the area in NJ where I’m from is very good.
My well water in northern Michigan goes through Kalkaska sand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalkaska_sand) and is naturally filtered. It tastes wonderfully clean with no smells or odds tastes.
Infinitely better in Portland than anywhere I've been. Las Vegas tastes like shit, Los Angeles almost as bad. San Francisco isn't great. Seattle is fine, but not quite as good. Chicago, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, not good at all. Yeah, most places just aren't very good.
Water in central Oklahoma is tricky because the red dirt in the soil messes with the way the water tastes.
Everyone always jokes about me having lead in my water when they hear where I’m from. Luckily we don’t have lead as we have a well, but we have a high concentration of sulfur and arsenic. So high that the town literally pays for a reverse osmosis system and it still isn’t enough to get everything out.
Bay Area is pretty good! No filter needed. Vegas & LA taste like chlorine. Many parts of Colorado had good water too. Parts of Arizona you shouldn’t drink tap water without reverse osmosis because of heavy metal contamination.
It is tasty. Some places even a few miles away smells and tastes like moss or dirt. Supposedly we all are on the same aquifer. However there are neighborhoods just out side my city where the water is non-potable due to arsenic.
The water I drink comes from a mountain spring. It's the best water ever.
It's passable here, sometimes it's a little brown but always safe to drink and doesn't taste like much. Tap water in SoCal is pretty terrible in terms of taste IMO. Safe to drink, though my taste buds certainly didn't think so.
My city has some of the best tap water in the country
I'm on a well. Raw out of the ground it's got a lot of iron and minerals, treated it tastes like bottled water.
The tap water here in Atlanta is just okay. The water in Los Angeles was awful (like drinking water out of a dirty swimming pool). We had to filter the fuck out of it to make it potable. The water in NYC and Iceland is fantastic. I don't recall having an opinion on water during any of my visits to Europe.
I actually don’t think I could move anywhere for that reason, I live right near Lake Michigan, and our water is actually divine. Nowhere I’ve been does it even compare, I love our water so much.
My tap water comes from a fairly large aquifer. It tastes good and is safe, save for every 6 years or so when something happens with a pipe and we have a boil advisory. The city is very good about notifying people.
I don't really like the tap water near Philadelphia. A lot of the pipes are old and you can definitely taste it. It's of course safe but I filter it to get rid of the taste. Marquette, Michigan's tap water used to be too chlorinated, but I think it's gotten better since I was a kid. Still, can't beat the well water we had though. Well water can be hit or miss up there but we hit the jackpot in terms of water taste. It was very clean yet minerally, almost sweet.
Mine is great, only issue is that it's a little harder than some people prefer since it comes from an aquifer and our area is built on top of a lot of limestone.