Why Use Empty Water with Third Wave Water Minerals?

In all four of Third Wave Water’s mineral profiles, we recommend adding them to some form of “empty water,” or water that has nothing in it. There are several acceptable forms of empty water that we have found to work great with our minerals.

• Distilled Water (our favorite)
• Reverse Osmosis Water
• Deionized Water
• Water from a Zero Water™ Filter

Other Waters are Inconsistent

Other types of water like filtered water, spring water, and tap water will not work well with Third Wave Water minerals. This is because all of these kinds of water will contain unknown amounts of unknown minerals that would inhibit and interfere with the precise measurements of minerals that we put into our mineral sticks. 

These kinds of waters, especially spring water and tap water, change from place to place. Not all water springs contain the same amounts of minerals, and they are also bottled regionally, so one bottle of Poland Spring water or another kind will contain different minerals than in another bottle from the same brand, maybe even the same shelf!

In a study comparing mineral content in tap water and bottled water, large mineral variances were discovered between water sources among individual cities, not just city to city. See some of their data findings below. 

Information from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1495189/

Other Waters are Harmful

These other kinds of water (tap water, spring water, filtered water) are all harmful for your equipment because of the mineral content in them. These minerals cause scale to build up in your equipment and can cause corrosion in your espresso machine. 

All of Third Wave Water’s profiles are made with specialized blends of minerals to prevent these issues from occurring and increasing the lifespan of your machinery. We do not use any temporary hardness minerals to prevent scale from building up. This alleviates the need to descale your kettle or coffee maker and increases their lifespan as well. 

We also avoid the use of chlorides in the Espresso Profile because these kinds of minerals will cause corrosion to occur in your machine’s boiler due to the high pressures and temperatures that espresso machines typically operate at.