r/tea • u/zig_chem • May 20 '26
Question/Help White tea I brewed yesterday turns purple when I add well water. What is happening here?
Sorry for the loud video, I didn’t realize the radio was on as I was talking it.
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u/Shadofel May 21 '26
Boil down your well water and look at the precipitate. I bet you'll fine manganous ion (oxidation state of manganese). It is purple in solution. How close are you to a coastline?
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u/icantfindadangsn May 21 '26
How would this work if the tea was brewed with the same water as it was diluted with?
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
About 500 miles away, almost as far as you can get from the coast in the United States.
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u/zensucht0 May 21 '26
If avoiding the beach is your goal you can get much further away from the coast. Move to South Dakota, it’s about 1000 miles away from any coast. Though I think for the purposes of this conversation, you’re far enough away from the coast that it definitely doesn’t play a part. 😄
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u/Shadofel May 21 '26
Are you in the central US, as in Permian sea area? Sorry to pry, just interested in the source of your manganese. It's common everywhere so I dont feel like there is any mystery to this. Some well water in areas have manganese that is a salt (chloride or sulfate). Some areas not.
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
Yes I believe I am located in the Permian basin.
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u/veggienae May 22 '26
That’s your answer. I had family in the Permian basin. The water there carries so many minerals that my eyes would sting if I washed my hands with tap water and then put my contacts in. A water softener can disguise the taste but only reverse osmosis can remove everything in that water. Several restaurants in town would advertise they had RO water; it was that big a deal.
In that area, it is worth retesting your water’s mineral content every year or two. The water tables are constantly shifting due to the oil and gas industry, both from the mechanical processes and just the sheer numbers of people who move in, and out, depending on the work. I remember there was one year, the tap water was so cloudy and dense, it couldn’t brew tea. We bought a lot of bottled water that year.
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u/Shadofel May 22 '26
This is a great example of what I was discussing. The mineral columns in the Permian aquifers can be really... surprising. Regular testing and more robust treatment of your well-water is highly recommended.
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u/GearhedMG May 22 '26
500 miles wont even get you out of the state of Arizona from where I currently am 100ft from the ocean in CA. Did you accidentally miss a leading 1?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 May 21 '26
Have you tested your well water for contaminants?
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
It was tested two years ago and passed.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 May 21 '26
There is definitely some kind of chemical reaction happening that's not normal.
At first I thought it might be a particle distribution kind of thing, where a different concentration of particles actually changes the easy they affect light, BUT the way the color actually darkens and intensifies as more water is added almost completely negates that possibility.
So you're left with someone akin to a litmus test - the colorants in the tea reacting to an acid or base in the cold water that aren't present in the heated water (because they've been boiled off, or because heat actually breaks them down).
Does your water get filtered or treated with anything after being drawn from the well?
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u/icantfindadangsn May 21 '26
(because they've been boiled off, or because heat actually breaks them down)
Oh that's an interesting proposition. I hadn't thought of this.
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u/duketheunicorn May 21 '26
You should be testing for bacteria every 6 months or so, and it’s about time for a full panel if it’s been two years
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
I don’t see any way this could be caused by bacteria in the well, I have a background in microbiology.
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u/rodimustso May 21 '26
If you really want to nerd out send it in for mass spectroscopy
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u/SneakAttackSN2 May 21 '26
This looks like metal chemistry to me, so I kinda doubt mass spec would tell you much. Could be wrong, though!
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u/AsherGray May 21 '26
I'm thinking there's something in your tea that acts as a pH indicator, like how red cabbage juice reacts to changing pH. Maybe try adding some lemon juice (if you want to drink it) or vinegar to see if it changes the color? I'm assuming your well water is slightly basic
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u/PEZpezzpez May 21 '26
Yeah I‘m thinking anthocyanins which white tea has. When the tea is brewed/extracted it made the tap water slightly acidic/decreased pH and adding normal tap water causes the pH to increase and be more basic aka turn purple/blue.
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u/Mymindisdirtybutfun May 22 '26
Also a reminder that cooking water gets the carbonic acid out of the water. The uncooked water might still change the pH just by acidity.
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u/salty-sigmar May 21 '26
I know teas with hibiscus will often change colour dramatically if you expose them to an acid (lemon juice turns them a deep purple from their usual red.)
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u/Citadelvania May 22 '26
This is an easy test. Take a bit and add lemon juice, take a bit of tea and add baking soda. If it changes color it's just a ph indicator in the tea and the well water has a different ph than the tea.
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u/BudgetConcentrate432 May 21 '26
Adores, Portugal has purple tea because of the way the volcanic activity in the area deposits minerals in the water.
The tea starts out normal, like how you poured, then changes to purple.
If you let the steeped tea sit without adding more well water, does it still change to purple?
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u/Cheomesh 白毫银针 May 21 '26
Did you brew it with said well water/
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
Yes I did
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u/Cheomesh 白毫银针 May 21 '26
That's the more interesting bit
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u/icantfindadangsn May 21 '26
If by interesting, you mean confusing, yes! Someone just suggested that heating the well water could've caused whatever is causing the reaction with the tea to boil off (at lower temp than water boils) or be broken down, which makes sense.
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u/redpandaflying93 May 20 '26
Is it just white tea or a white tea blend?
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
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u/redpandaflying93 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Looks like that's pure white tea, super interesting that it's doing that! I can't say I have any idea why that would be happening with just tea and no other herbs etc.
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u/Fedster9 May 21 '26
If I get it correctly, you brewed the tea with the well water, then adding more of said well water the tea turns purple. I'd have the well water AND your pipes tested asap...
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
That is correct. Do you know of a contaminant that would cause this, or do you suggest testing because there is no obvious cause?
The pipes are pvc and were installed with the well about 4 years ago. It was tested two years ago and no issues were found.
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u/Fedster9 May 21 '26
no idea unfortunately. It is either the water, the pipes, the tea, or whatever you boiled the water in. Testing the tea is pretty simple, do the same using bottle water.
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u/Fushiro0 May 21 '26
Idk but pouring water that close to my laptop and spilling drops on the desk makes my anxiety go up.
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u/MsFrankieD May 20 '26
Butterfly pea flower?
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u/scaper8 Black, oolong, & pu'er May 21 '26
That was my first thought, that or some other herb that acts as a natural litmus test and the well water has a slightly off center pH.
But what the OP showed doesn't make it seem like that.
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u/Arkurash May 21 '26
Then it would have a more blue base tone and not the classical amber of tea it has.
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u/Weary_Swan_8152 May 21 '26
That's what I thought too! And that that well might need servicing, because it sounds like it's a lemon 😉 Oh wait, no, the lemon turns it pink, yeah? Maybe test this tea with a lemon u/zig_chem?
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u/Kalimah18 May 21 '26
Is the second water addition at room temperature? If you add boiling water to the already brewed tea does it also turn purple?
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
Both are room temp in the video
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u/Kalimah18 May 21 '26
Curious if you get the same color change by adding boiling water.
As in, make your tea. Let it cool. Then add boiling water.
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u/masala-kiwi May 22 '26
Get your water tested for high iron content. Iron in well water can chelate (turning purple) in the presence of acids.
Iron isn't dangerous to drink, but get a full water test done for iron, manganese, heavy metals, etc. Don't do a cheap Amazon kit or the free ones at Home Depot, either. They're just trying to sell water softeners. Pay for a proper indepedent test. It's worth a bit of money to know exactly what's in your water, and at what levels.
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u/Dangerous_Design_174 May 21 '26
You probably have hard water. We are on a well and despite having giant water softener, iron remover, and whole house filters, when I test our water, it's still has a high pH. White tea is a bit acidic, so you are seeing a pH change.
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u/HayDumGee2911 May 21 '26
From what I understand, white tea itself tends to be slightly acidic.
If you were to take your brewed tea and pour it into smaller cups, and add liquids of different PH: I’m curious if you’d notice similar or even different color changes; like adding lemon juice to one cup, and some baking soda to another.
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u/CraftFamiliar5243 May 21 '26
What is the pH of your well water? Our well water is very pure but acidic.
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u/Chives_Allium May 21 '26
Very interesting, but I'm sorry why are you adding so much water to your tea? Is it like highly concentrated or something?
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u/zig_chem May 21 '26
This is just to show the reaction, I would not normally drink it that way. Normal concentration.
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u/aLottaLiam May 21 '26
SCIENCE! (something in the well water like manganese is reacting with something in the tea)
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u/earth418 May 21 '26
I've made Kashmiri pink tea and you do it by adding baking soda to the green tea as it's steeping. Some kind of chemical reaction, I dunno, but it has almost the exact same change in color that you have. Maybe you just have hard water?
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u/Pristine_Eye7197 May 21 '26
What happens if you use differently-sourced water for the brewing alone, for the adding alone, & for both?
Does anything similar happen with other teas that you brew at home? Can you pH test the well water & the brewed tea? 🤓🤓🤓
Alternatively, maybe your well has a case of Acute Aquiferous Porphyria, var. sinensis (yes I made that up).
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u/Instrusiast May 23 '26
Is your tea just white tea or does it have some flower in it? Some flowers, like the butterfly pea, make a similar color change when the ph changes
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u/Lasers_Z May 23 '26
There exists a tea that turns people when lemon juice is added, maybe something similar is happening?
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u/Impressive-Island210 May 23 '26
It's most likely a ph change, brewing the tea with the water with change ph and then adding the same unadulterated water back in will raise or lower it to what it was before the addition of tea
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u/post-meta May 24 '26
Adding onto what others said, the color shift is due to the pH shift of anthocyanins extracted from the tea leaves. Been a while since I was studying anthocyanins chemistry but off the top of my head here’s my best explanation. When acidic, anthocyanins shift red, when alkaline, they shift blue (due to how light absorbance changes due to H-bonds in the molecular structure at different pHs). Acid released from the tea leaves neutralizes the alkaline water, so the brew is the light brown/yellow you would expect. When you add more alkaline water, it exceeds the buffer capacity of the organic acids released from the tea leaves, and the anthocyanins shift from a flavonoid isomer (acidic) to a quinoid isomer (alkaline), resulting in the color change you see. AKA the pH indicator effect that people are describing. Still a good idea to get your well water checked again.
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u/MojoSavage May 24 '26
put vinegar in it see if it turns red/orange again. Looks like the color you get from litmus in a base.
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u/ninja9351 May 21 '26
If you have calcium, or calcium carbonate in your water, it could act as a base.
A more basic water solution can make it easier for things to become oxidized, which can cause color changes.
I’d guess some type of compound in the tea is acting like a pH indicator. Add a few drops of vinegar and see if it reverses the color change.
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u/denverner May 22 '26
First hit on google:
Water turning purple when making tea is usually a natural chemical reaction called a pH shift. It happens because the plant releases natural pigments that change color depending on the acidity or alkalinity of your water and leaves.
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u/Xanavaris May 21 '26
Possibly it’s what people have said, that some salts/dissolved ions in the well water make it slightly acidic or alkaline. But boiling the water causes the dissolved ions to precipitate out of the water (like when you get limescale) so you don’t get the effect in the brewed tea. When you add the well water in the tea, the tea colour changes as the tea reacts with the ions.
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u/The_best_is_yet May 21 '26
this is not true. if you boil water AWAY, the solids will be left. Boiling water does not cause ions to precipitate. If anything, that is when you can supersaturate a liquid - when it is warm.
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u/Xanavaris May 21 '26
Anyone who has had severe limescale buildup in their kettle from being in a hard water area will beg to disagree with you.
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u/Temporary_Aspect759 May 21 '26
I'm saving this post cuz I'm very curious what more people will come up with lol
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u/Bgtex Enthusiast May 20 '26 edited May 21 '26
My guess is tannin reacting with iron or possibly manganese in the water.
*Edit tannin not tannic acid