SA Water Quality Guide
Check how your tap water or favourite bottled brand stacks up against the SCA Coffee Water Standard — with plain-English verdicts, sourced numbers, and honest gaps.
💧 In simple terms: Pick your city below and we'll show you what's in your tap water and whether it's good for coffee. The coloured badges tell you if each number is in range, a bit off, or way out compared to what the SCA (the coffee scientists) recommend. If you own a TDS meter, pop your reading in for a more accurate picture.
SA municipalities publish per supply zone, not per street.
Got a cheap TDS pen? Enter it to override the city default.
Johannesburg
Rand Water (Vaal system)All Joburg suburbs — Sandton, Rosebank, Soweto, Randburg, Roodepoort, Midrand, etc.
About the fallback estimate(s)
Alkalinity is NOT published by Rand Water. Shown as a fallback ≈ total hardness (bicarbonate-dominated SA water; Umgeni Water research shows alkalinity:hardness ≈ 0.9–1.1). Treat as an estimate, not a measurement.
What I’d try
- A carbon + ion-exchange jug filter (e.g. BWT/Brita-style) softens hardness and trims alkalinity towards the SCA box.
- Try Valpré — it's the closest mainstream SA bottled water to SCA spec.
Every figure links to its source and report date. Where data isn’t published, this tool says “not published” rather than guessing.