Survivors of the great Giardia and Cryptosporidium scare of Sydney in 1998, we heaved a sigh of relief after moving to the country. Having only tank water instead of water piped from a large reservoir, we’d no longer worry about life-threatening bugs every time we filled a glass from the tap. And, touch wood, so far we haven’t.

While our tap water is the best water we’ve ever tasted, in the last few years we’ve become connoisseurs of the town tap water that’s served in cafés and restaurants across the region. Each has its own distinctive flavour.

You might think ‘flavour’ is a strange word to use about water when it’s supposed to be odourless and colourless… right? In theory, perhaps, but not in country Victoria.

If you can smell the water before your lips even make contact with the glass, there’s a fair chance that it contains chlorine. You might remember the odour from your school days when you were bussed to the council pool for interminable swimming lessons on freezing cold Spring and Autumn days.

If, like me, you’ve been mentally scarred by the scent of ‘eau de municipal pool’, the slightest whiff of chlorinated tap water will stir deeply unpleasant memories.

It really doesn’t taste the best, either, and in the café in Ballarat where we sometimes have lunch, we tend to avoid drinking from the bottle of tap water that’s routinely deposited on our table. Daylesford tap water has a similar taste but its aroma is a little milder.

In Castlemaine the water has no odour at all. Whether it’s because there’s no need to add chlorine to the town’s water supply, or because the chlorine is doled out with a lighter hand, we don’t know.

Strident opposition to the addition of fluoride to Daylesford’s water supply has kept that additive, at least, from reaching the taps of consumers. In a town where dentists are in short supply, you’d think that residents would welcome a way of keeping their dental cavities at bay. But their health concerns about fluoride are legitimate.

There’s the possibility, for instance, of a link between bone cancer in boys and fluoridated water, and also a worry that fluoride in drinking water is linked to an increased incidence of hip fractures in women over the age of 65.

While studies are inconclusive, if I had to rely on tap water I’d tend to err on the side of caution and use filters to remove additives. Or install a rainwater tank from which to draw drinking water. But even drinking water from tanks and bores can have its problems.

I’ve tasted bore water around here and it’s fine, but it isn’t always so in other places. A few years ago we visited a café in Bombala, in southern New South Wales, for afternoon tea. The tea was of the leaf variety, the Victoria sponge cake was deliciously fresh, and the attractive cups, saucers and plates had been hand-made by a local artisan. The only ingredient that failed to impress was the water.

From a bore, it imparted a flavour to the tea that I can only describe as mildewed canvas. And I know what that tastes like. On a camping weekend, first awake and desperately thirsty in the early morning, I drank dew off a tent awning when there was no other water available. 

Take it from me, water with that kind of flavour is definitely best avoided.