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| My grandmother's teapot. © Eugene Brennan |
Once
upon a time, it was possible to get nearly two cups of tea from a
Barry's tea bag. Now it takes nearly two bags per cup. I remember
learning in Inter Cert science that one of the attributes of hard water
is that it's difficult to make tea with it. So that's the consequences
of getting our water from the Barrow instead of from the Liffey, which
has its source in the granite of the Wicklow Mountains. I don't think
BRITA water filters or their clones remove lime from water. The lime
also clouds shower doors and takes forever to clean with vinegar, the
coating returning within a week. So I just gave up regular cleaning and
only do it when the stalactites are ready to snap off.