This macho filter is sworn to protect you from waterborne impurities and soften H2O, too. But what if you’re a fan of the hard stuff?
The Zerowater pitcher (£39.99, 2tech.co.uk) is a bicameral water pitcher with a gravity-fed filter core. It traps dissolved solids.
How soft is your water? How deep is your love? How much is that doggy in the window? The one with the hexavalent chromium contamination?
I know it’s probably important, but I can’t bring myself to care about what comes out of the tap. Surely one of the psychopaths holding high office will kill me before my water does? Judging by the chemicals listed on Zerowater’s box, you would think Lex Luthor had taken over utilities and was trying to flush out Superman. Zerowater is the “only pitcher certified to reduce lead chromium 6”. (This might sound like the new Samsung phone, but is in fact the plucky carcinogen that starred in the film Erin Brockovich. If this filter had been around, there would have been no Oscar for Julia Roberts.)
Black packaging and acres of text mark this gadget’s masculine self-belief. There is much caps lock, banging on about its “comprehensive ion exchange array”. The basic message is: you don’t have to be woopsy to drink refined agua! A laboratory-grade digital TDS meter is included! If Carling made water filters, they would probably remove 99.6% of total dissolved solids! It’s so full of itself, I’m not sure where to put the water.
The jug is large and heavy, like a velociraptor’s head, and doesn’t fit in a fridge. The huge ready-pour reservoir is necessary, because the filter works slowly, passing water through five stages, including fine mesh sieves, an activated carbon bed and resin beads that swap calcium and magnesium ions for sodium, thereby softening it. If you drink it without picturing glacial meltwater that has trickled down a Welsh mountainand percolated through the fur of a pine marten that died upstream, does soft water taste better? Personally, I don’t mind the hard stuff. Plus, all this talk of filtering out impurities absolutely smacks of Brexit. There is no denying that macho Zerowater makes water taste like the purified, bottled stuff it claims to match. Regarding its five stages, I’m stuck on denial, but I dare say I’ll get to acceptance.
The digital stick that “reads” your water will appeal to some. I like the spigot that lets you pour a glass without lifting the jug. Nice word, “spigot”.
RIP pine marten. #nofilter 3/5
