This question is obviously intended for those that live in places where tap water is “safe to drink.”
I live in Southern California, where I’m at the end of a long chain of cities. Occasionally, the tap smells of sulfur, hardness changes, or it tastes… odd. I’m curious about the perspective of people that are directly involved and their reasoning.
Where I am most people are happy to drink the tap water, and we’re all oddly proud of it. Which is fair, it’s great water. Very soft too, I remember seeing ads on TV for products to remove limescale but that doesn’t really happen here much. I find it a little odd that some places’ tap water is so full of impurities that it leaves mineral deposits on their appliances.
Come to Scotland, try our tap water!
Those aren’t necessarily impurities in the nasty sense, just mineral content.
Scotland and North-West England have excellent tap water. The water in the Midlands and London is perfectly safe to drink, but it certainly has a taste to it.
If you wish to taste some Finnish ones, I’m sure I can bottle and ship some of our tapwater for you guys to taste.
https://mediconnection.fi/en/water-finland-purest-world/
Severn Trent (the midlands) is often voted the best tap water in the UK.
Generally it is not impurities or more so too many minerals of a certain kind. Usually not dangerous in any way. Providing it meets certain standards of course. Not disagreeing what you say but is too generic.
Treating water I have taken an interest in the production. You will actually find totally demineralized water tastes bad and actually is dangerous from a long term health perspective. You can buy it easily enough and it is entirely safe to drink but to most people, the lack of any taste is not acceptable. Soft water is also a complex term. You are rather correct in that you want a certain level of softness but this generally is to help in washing and to keep pipes clean. It does not necessarily help in taste and say in private well systems, you often will see soft water directed to the showers and toilets and hot water but drinking will be the non soft direct water. The soft can taste horrible.
Point being you really want minerals in water. Certain minerals anyhow. The exact make up of this will vary region to region so people may get use to some particular taste and not like another. Water with zero minerals will generally be universally not liked and somewhat unhealthy.