"Good coffee needs water that is very, very hard."

by **harris** on Wed Sep 26, 2007 12:59 pm

According to the article below, "Good coffee needs water that has run through limestone and is very, very hard."

Is this statement correct? I was under the impression that 2-3 grains of calcium was optimal for espresso. Is 2-3 grains considered very, very hard in Italy?

Italy aims to standardise the perfect espresso

by **another_jim** on Wed Sep 26, 2007 4:42 pm

5 grains is optimal for all coffee; 2-3 grains is the max that won't scale the boiler. More than 5 grains is pointless, since the added calcium will precipitate out when the water gets to around boiling (I admit I've never tried toddy brewing with Vichy water).

by gt on Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:39 pm

WOW that's interesting. I just checked my city (New Brighton, MN) web pages and I guess mine falls into the pretty hard range.

Is the water in New Brighton hard?
New Brighton's water is classified as very hard with 17 to 20 grains per gallon. Water hardness is due principally to calcium and magnesium and water is generally harder in areas where calcium and magnesium rich limestone rocks are present. New Brighton pumps some of its water from aquifers in dolomite/limestone rock formation.

by **Genesis** on Sun Sep 30, 2007 1:16 am

Yeah, but you'll never get that hardness through the boiler.

That's the thing when you get down to it - after a point it just precipitates out..... and you definitely don't want to run water that hard through your machine without some conditioning, or you'll be descaling the thing constantly!


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