Is it safe to drink the tapwater now? I wonder which is worse, tapwater or bottled water with microplastics?

From the day I got here and saw the mandatory two bottles of potable water in every hotel room, it has been a mainstay to treat China like Mexico: don't drink the water. I remember long ago some foreigner in Shanghai sent in samples of Chinese bottled water for testing. Ce'st bon was the best, the Nongfu Spring water from Qiandao Hu, what most people drank around here, was found to be hard water that could cause kidney stones. 

I always had a water cooler machine,  but on those the rate of flow was so low you couldn't make a pot of soup without  holding down the handle for five minutes. 

Years ago I switched to C'est bon in the big 4.5 liter bottles, but now I'm not so sure.  Microplastics, they say. 

What's tapwater like now? Anyone seen any reliable reports from overseas labs? 

I have a buddy who had a reverse osmosis filter installed in his kitchen, but it comes out of a separate, every small tap that, once again, has that same glacial rate of flow.  I don't get it, apparently this doesn't bother anyone but me. 

I drink from the water dispensing machines they have at work in office/at the gym, I think those are a combination of filtering/boiling. At home I just drink from the 4-5L nongfu bottles, and when I make tea I boil water from those bottles as well. I don't really cook but do people just cook with tap water? I sometimes boil instant ramen with it or with water from my nongfu bottled water but that seems like a waste. Back in the states I'd hear people saying drinking reverse osmosis/distilled water was bad for you too since it had no minerals.

On 12/12/2025 at 10:47 AM, vellocet said:

Anyone seen any reliable reports from overseas labs? 

Would be interesting to see , I've been drinking bottled plastic water for years both in the US and China as my main water intake at home am I shaving years off my life. 

Interesting question I'd like an answer to also. C'est bon was always what we had in the house. These days everyone seems to use a communal filter downstairs in the shared areas of the 小区, you go down with a big water cooler bottle and fill it up there fresh every few days, no idea what filters are used and how often they are changed...

We cook some things with tap water - rice, noodles and other things where it boils. Fill demijohns at machines in the village that deliver purified water cheap, use that for things like making coffee so the pot doesn't scale up and cooking at lower temps, then also have a water cooler where we buy the cheapest brand of spring water to drink straight.

And I didn't mention, I don't know for a fact but I assume every soup, hotpot and egg and tomato dish  always uses tapwater. 

I also didn't mention why I brought this up: the other day I felt  a spell coming on and had to take a pill and drank it down with  water from the bathroom sink.  It wasn't terrible, so it made me wonder.  It's not bacterial contamination that can be treated the usual way with boiling but rather chemical and/or heavy metals that you can't taste and that won't make you throw up but  get into every cell of your body.

In Kunming, I always used tap water for dish washing and cooking and used a delivery service for the big jugs that fit my water machine  饮水机。The company was only a block away and a strong young delivery guy would brought them over on his motorscooter and carry them up 4 flights of steps on a shoulder. My apartment was old and had no elevator. Delivery guys were so careful to put on shoe covers before entering my home; part of their protocol. They put on gloves before replacing the old jug with the new one. Part of their protocol. 

The water machine worked well and would put out hot or cold water in a very usable stream. I used it for tea. Bought a book of coupons every month or two. It was very convenient and economical. Wish I had a similar service here in Texas at a similar price.

If I had been giving the water on a regular basis to a household full of young children, I would have paid more attention to its potential long-term effects. Since it was just me, one old guy, I didn't really care as long as it tasted OK and didn't give me the trots. As a bonus, it was always good language practice to call the water company to arrange a delivery and have to explain my address and how to get here. I would sometimes even do it with a Kunming accent, trying my best to sound like a local. (Never managed to fool them.)

The big Thermos of boiled water with calcium carbonate collecting at the bottom. Another relic of China past.

On 12/12/2025 at 12:52 PM, vellocet said:

It's not bacterial contamination that can be treated the usual way with boiling but rather chemical and/or heavy metals that you can't taste and that won't make you throw up but  get into every cell of your body.

My partner had a sample of her hair tested for elemental analysis. It showed that she had more than ten times the average concentration of uranium in her hair. For what it is worth, she is from Shandong, though has been living mostly in the UK for the past several years. Because if this, she also had my and her parents' hair tested. The uranium content in my hair was normal, whereas her parents also had raised uranium, suggesting the source was in China rather than the UK. Still not sure what the source is though, since she does not drink tap water.

Tap water in most parts of China is a nightmare for several reasons:

1) the water source is likely to be polluted, especially if it's from a river rather than a lake or reservoir;

2) the water may contain excessive, unwanted minerals;

3) they disinfect the water with way too much chlorine; and

4)the pipes carrying the water may not be safe - for example, in my village, to save money, uncertified pipes had been in use for many years until excessive levels of heavy metals and other harmful substances were detected.

Stay away from it.

But then again, bottled water is not ideal, either, because of microplastics.

PS: My family and I drink from a well.