Less obvious than how it sounds, The secret to make a good cup of coffee and tea, considering the second most important ingredient

I was in a local bar in Naples when I made a compliment on how good was the coffee and the barista kindly explained to me that the secret was the water!

Was the first time hearing something like that so I was curious about this answer, and the reason it's because the tap water from Naples it's usually very pure and low in minerals

Thinking about this, actually makes sense that all the waters don't taste the same and just considering  the varieties of minerals you can have in the water really changes a lot from places to places or from different brands, and each mineral changes the taste of it, therefore since this is basically the other half as ingredient for any kind of coffee or tea, it means that changes the taste too!

As a personal experience, I can say that the taste of the coffee of the same brand was different in Naples compared to the one I usually had in Rome (where I grew up)

So what did change ?

Immediately I can recall that the tap water in Rome it's famous to be very high in Calcium so the taste it's different compared to the low in mineral water from Naples, that made me confirm even more this theory 

Now, Which kind of water to choose for your coffee or tea ?

Considering the low amount of water you would use just for the coffees or teas on a daily basis, it's worthy to prefer the bottled one since the taste could be way better compared to the tap water that usually is high in minerals (called hard water) or simply imbalanced with one mineral in higher content 

Another consideration is that if you already having bottled water, you can try different brands to notice how the taste changes and choose your favourite one because everyone has differente preferences for sure

But if you don't notice any change in taste, doesn't make sense to prefer any brand of bottled water in particular.

Extra tip for coffees:

If you try to make coffee with a different bottled water and you notice that the taste is stronger and maybe too much, usually the reason it's because the Calcium and Magnesium are the two main minerals responsible for this, so for law any brand has to report the exact amount of minerals and you can check and compare the one with the lowest amount to make your coffee taste even better  

Extra tip for teas:

All of the above applies to tea even more

So using a pure water can help to taste the tea properly

But as a main rule especially if using the kettle: is to never boil the same water again, because each time the Oxygen in the water will be less and less which could make the taste very bad 

So always change the water 

I Hope any of this info will be useful, now if you excuse me I am going to have a coffee;)