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For clean and tasty drinking water, add these jugs to your kitchen essentials
Tap water is convenient and easily accessible, but the taste can be quite off-putting in some places (we’re looking at you, London).
Water companies often add chlorine and other chemicals to the water in the filtering process to prevent contamination, but unfortunately this does affect taste.
If you’re after water that tastes better than what comes out of your tap, bottled water is always an option, but with a recommended water intake of at least 2l per day, there’s quite a bit of single-use plastics involved. A better option would be a water filter jug.
Most filters for these jugs last about one month or between 150l-200l, so you’ll end up with less waste. We can also confirm that water tastes a lot better coming from these jugs compared with water from our tap, and there are plenty of designs that easily fit into the fridge too, so you’ll have a cold drink waiting for you at all times.
All jugs in this round-up improved the taste of our tap water, but taste differences between jugs were slim, so whichever brand you choose will mainly depend on personal preference when it comes to size, material, design and nifty features.
We followed the instructions provided with each of the water jugs – this usually involved giving the jug and compartment a good clean, and soaking the filter in water for about five minutes. Then we’d insert the filter, fill the jug three times and flush its contents, drinking from the next batch.
Some of the jugs in this round-up come with a filter reminder system, so you know exactly when it’s time to replace it, which, of course, added to the price of the jug, but also to our appreciation of it. We timed how long it took for the jugs to fill up with filtered water and checked whether they fit into a fridge door.
Brands claim the jugs filter water from all sorts of nasties, including chlorine, limescale, lead, pesticides and more. While our testing didn’t verify those claims, we did find the flavour noticeably improved for every single one of these jugs, and whichever one you end up choosing will mostly depend on budget, size, sustainability and durability.
It’s hard to part ways with an old and trusted, which is why Brita style eco water filter jug took top spot for us. We’ve had the brand’s water filter jugs before and can’t seem to part ways with them. The filter jug also scores points for its bio-based material, LED light feature and great taste, while the sea-green and glacier-blue colour options look great in the home.
The Aqua Optima Oria water filter jug came in as a close second, thanks to impeccable taste, as well as quick refills, while the Phox wave water filter jug stood out for eco-credentials.
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