After looking at a cup of tea I'd made which had a slight film on the top, I decided that I'd had enough of drinking and making tea & coffee with hard water and looked to amazon for a reasonably priced water filter. After looking at a few products, I decided that this was the size I wanted and, more importantly, the amount of money I wanted to spend.
A day later, my Brita Marella Cool White Water Filter Jug was in my hands. After a quick and easy assembly of all the parts (and a quick wash, naturally) it was ready to use and looking very smart. I took a glass of water from it and I was immediately impressed by just how clean tasting the water was - it was difficult to believe that the water I was drinking had come from my South London tap.
It also passed the tea and coffee test with flying colours. The taste of my freshly brewed coffee really comes through when it isn't fighting the impurities of hard water. For the very reasonable price of this water filter, the improvement in the quality of your water - and subsequently your life - is very noticable.
For those thinking of getting a water filter and worried about the running costs, it apparently gets through one cartridge a month on average and I bought myself a pack of three cartridges to go with this from amazon for just over the £10 mark. They are also available at all leading supermarkets, so you don't have to go hunting around specialist stores to keep your water filter going.
If you have noticably impure water, I would strongly recommend you invest in one of these handy little jugs. It fits right on my fridge door and, to be honest, I don't know why I waited this long to get one. Go on, treat yourself, you deserve great, clean tasting water.