Water and coffee make a very happy marriage.

“If 95% of your espresso is water, make sure you’re using the very best water” a well-known water filter brand famously said in an advert some years ago.

Many people do tend to forget that by far the main ingredient in our coffee is indeed water.

When it comes to great coffee making, the water you choose is as important as your coffee blend and your grinding, tamping and extracting methods.

The mineral content of water and its pH level are decisive factors that influence how the espresso tastes.

The wrong water can ruin the taste of even the very finest quality coffee, meaning all your previous hard work has been for nothing. That’s why it’s important to use specific water filters and treatments.

It might seem obvious, but it’s also good to check that you’re using water that doesn’t have any smell.

Numerous experts claim that the ideal water for making coffee should have no smell, colour or taste, be  completely free of chlorine and heavy metals, and have 75 to 250 mg of residue per litre. In addition to having a pH between 6.5 and 7.5, for every litre it should have between 17 and 85 mg of calcium and about 10mg of sodium.

Using mineral-rich water may give you great creamy coffee with incredible aroma but over time it will lead to lime scale build-up in your machine, which requires regular and thorough maintenance.

The market has seen the arrival of innovative and highly-effective filter systems that can help fix this problem and treat virtually every water type.