Water sourcing
Water vendors for sourcing RO water
To use Magic Potion powders effectively you need "pure" water.
By pure we mean water with <15 TDS (as measured with a simple electic TDS pen), so that the water is almost free of dissolved ions, solids and other things that will impact brewing.
You need to start from a blank slate, otherwise you'll have no idea of the final composition and brewing will not be consistent.
For this reason, you cannot use normally filtered tap water or mineral waters.
What can I use?
The most practical source is reverse osmosis filered water, or "RO" water.
Reverse osmosis is a filtering process that uses high pressure and a very fine membrane that allows water to pass through it, but not much else.
This leads to very pure water with very few dissolved ions and solids – perfect for making potions with.
A lot of cafes/baristas in Thailand already use RO filtering for their cafes. While it's not ideal water for coffee, it is extremely consistent and reduces any limescale build up in machines.
RO water sources
There's two ways to get RO:
- Make it at home with an RO filtering system
- Buy it from a vendor
Filtering at home
In the long run and RO system is cheaper and easier, but you should also consider that RO water is not ideal drinking water. The human body is not used to drinking water devoid of any dissolved minerals/salts. Personally, we remineralise our RO water at home (something we'll discuss in another document).
For home filters we recommend buying from SafetyDrink. They tend to have promotions and affordable RO systems – you can browse their small RO water filter section here.
Buying from a vendor
There are a few easy-to-get sources of RO water in Thailand:
- Sprinkle water delivery - this is actually just RO water that has been UV filtered. Surprisingly this is very popular despite RO water (in our opinion) not tasting good and not being the best for long-term consumption
- Crystal brand drinking water
- 7-11 brand drinking water (the green brand)
- Yindee drinking water (Tops)
Most roadside vending machines for water are also RO, but we wouldn't really recommend trusting these.
Their filters need to be maintained and replaced regularly. If you get this, make sure to test it with a TDS meter and get it from somewhere trustworthy.