Drinking water in Japan

When last visiting Japan I remember the water having a scent of chlorine. I dont remember having any problems with drinking it except for the last day when I had a terrible stomach ache.

Now I plan on going back to Japan next year and still keeps wondering how safe it is to drink water with chlorine smell. I plan on visiting not only Tokyo but other cities and towns and staying in other cities and towns too.

Just want to be sure it is safe for someone not regularily visiting Japan, if there are any precautions I might need to take or any way to prevent stomach ache from drinking the water since it probably differs a lot from the water in my country if you see my point.

You can always purchase liter-size bottles of water at 7-eleven or other conbinis....

Several years I am in Japan, and I never drunk tap water, because after some minutes I feel more thirsty. Up to 14 YO I drunk water from the top, with no problems, probably because it was coming from mineral water area. After I moved from that place, I started to have problems drinking water from the tap. Therefore I only drink bottled water. In Japan I tried some, and I funded that easy some brands are not good for me depending on excess of salts, (which is easy in this volcanic land.) About chlorine, I can tell that anytime I got showers in hotels at Tokyo center, I had problems with my eyes and contact lens, while this happens few times a year in my house at very west Tokyo. Probably I am chlorine sensitive, by the way 2 Lt bottled water is affordable to avoid problems. I use tap water to boil pasta, but I feel there are some other ''ingredients'' here, because it never happened abroad that if you put salt on boiling water it extremely reacts for few second risking the water to come out. For any other cooking I use bottled water, also for soups. Though better than Thailand where I preferred bottled water also to boil pasta since I founded out that tap water commonly included water worm micro eggs. (Note that those small worms can be eaten, but I prefer spaghetti.)

Tap water quality varies greatly between the regions of Japan. It is wonderfully crisp and odor-less in most mountainous areas, where I personally love to drink it, but it can be lukewarm and come with a chlorine taste in cities like Tokyo. There, I buy my water in convenience stores.

I think tap water in Japan is regulated rather strictly. For example, it must contain more than 0.1 mg/L chloride at the faucet (of course this might result in chloride smell), and colon bacilli can not be found. About 20 years ago or so, although tap water in large cities is officially said to be drinkable, many people felt it not tasty because of the smells. In recent years the quality of tap water is said to be greatly improved, due to the active carbon treatment.

http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp/kakuka/suido/soumukikaku/suido_osak...

http://translate.google.co.jp/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en...

I am a Japanese living in a rural area in southern Kyushu and use tap water via Seagull IV X-1F purifier. In my town, tap water is from a well and they say tap water in my town is very nice. Actually the filter of Seagull IV is not in a bad condition after 1 or 2 years of use.

The quality of tap water is largely influenced by the water pipe in the building. If it is old and not maintained well, the water may contain red rust and taste bad.

Sorry,

not chloride but chlorine.

I dont think I ever drunk tap water when outside of the "base" cities. I might have filled an empty bottle with tap water like I do at home but when it ran out I relied on the machines selling bottled water.

When I went to Japan last time I stayed over at Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Osaka and Tokyo. Will go to Sapporo next time, maybe its different water there?

I read in a guide book it is not good to drink water in the mountain rivers, etc. Any reason for that? What about the area around Sendai and Fukushima, I suppose its a bit less safe to drink than in Tokyo for instance, since we will pass by Sendai by shinkansen train going to or from Sapporo.

I might have filled an empty bottle with tap water like I do at home but when it ran out I relied on the machines selling bottled water.

Actually, I bring a thermos bottle filled with cold barley tea i”ž’ƒjmade from tap water in my house every day. Yes, I also buy bottled oolong tea or green tea during the travel (and bottled water abroad). But I do not hesitate to drink free (perhaps tap) water in the Ramen shops. I also drink free cold water in the hotel room which I think is cooled tap water. There are bottled water in some restaurants in Japan, and I sometimes order an expensive bottled water, as it might be some kind of manner in some types of restaurants (I do not accept alcohol because of the lack of alcohol dehydrogenase). Perhaps there should be many different opinions about what types of water you should drink.

maybe its different water there

Yes, there should be difference. But I do not know how different they are.

it is not good to drink water in the mountain rivers

Perhaps this is because of the parasite. I hear there is Echinococcus in the river of Hokkaido and Tohoku area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinococcosis

The water is perfectly safe, but if you have a sensitive stomach it might upset it a bit until you get used to it. This goes for the food as well.

The same thing is true for a foreigner visiting your country (assuming it's safe to drink the tap water there usually).