Hi. I have a water line installed at my beverage center and I'm now looking at utilizing it so that I don't have to continue to buy bottled water and fill a reservoir.

First off, I live in the Tampa FL area and the water is ridiculously hard. I need to test it again, but I know it is off the charts. In the latest municipal water reports throughout Florida, there have also been concerns raised about PFAS, although I do not believe there are any specific alarms in my area or indication that the numbers are of massive concern.

If I go down this path, I feel my best approach is to both soften and filter the water, and I'd like to use a filtration device that specifically addresses PFAS.

I am not exactly sure what to look for, and I feel my Googling is throwing me further down a rat hole!!

Any advice or suggestions on solutions? I would love to hear them.

Besides the high hardness, you may have borderline or perhaps even high chloride in the Tampa Bay area. Your online water reports don't include chloride numbers but you can often get more information about your residence's tap water by contacting your water authority. You would want numbers (average and range) for chloride ion, in addition to the usual hardness and alkalinity numbers. Make sure they know you want the chloride numbers. (Chloride is not the same as chlorine, and most people are not concerned about chloride unless they have espresso equipment.)

If your chloride ion is high, then the practical solution for plumbing tap water into your machine and beverage bar would be a reverse osmosis system with a remineralization cartridge. The remineralization cartridge is usually calcite, sometimes with a little magnesium oxide beads. It will boost the pH, alkalinity, and hardness of the water enough to make it acceptable for espresso machine use, as well as improving the taste.

Even if you're unsure about your water, RO + remin is a reasonable solution because it works pretty much the same wherever you are, even if your water quality is variable or unknown. If properly maintained it will give you soft non-scaling water similar to what many espresso shops in bad water areas use (because they use RO + remin to treat their water) as well as in places like Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Oslo, Melbourne that have naturally soft water. It also has a nice advantage for you because RO systems are known to be effective in reducing PFAS.

This is extraordinarily helpful...thank you so much! I will see what I can track down in terms of chloride. But it sounds like this would be my best solution almost regardless.

The water side of this is brand new to me, so my next question is what to expect to ballpark pay for a RO+remin system? I do not use tap water in my house except for very occasional cooking, so this would be only for the water line I have going to the beverage bar.

I have thought of adding a whole-home water softening system, but that sounds like $5k+ and quite honestly that doesn't seem like a good investment for me given I am not certain how long I'll stay in the house. Plus, you don't want the soft water going into espresso machine so that would still need to be dealt with.

Scott_29 wrote:The water side of this is brand new to me, so my next question is what to expect to ballpark pay for a RO+remin system? I do not use tap water in my house except for very occasional cooking, so this would be only for the water line I have going to the beverage bar.

The systems that they use in coffee shops run in the thousands and have very high capacities and precision blending features. But the undersink systems that many home baristas use (APEC, iSpring, Homemaster seem to be popular brands) are in the $200 - $600 neighborhood and can handle 50 - 100 gallons per day. For very hard water you may want a softening filter on the front end to avoid membrane fouling. A permeate pump is usually a good idea and will help reduce the wastewater.