On the topic of water purification, my inner researcher reveals itself and made me conduct a test series of how to make chlorinated water taste less horrible.

At Kilimanjaro we will rely on water purification to make the water drinkable which in fact means chlorinate it which then will probably not taste like San Pellegrino. So we were recommended to use flavours to make the water more tasty. Of all the organisational stuff that needs to be done for Kili I picked this one for not feeling like I’m procrastinating.

For the water purification part, I ordered a two-component-chlorine-dioxide-solution called MMS, not only because it seems to be more effective to mix two solutions with a pipette than using tablets but also because I was told that it’s less harmful to the body.

For the flavouring part I didn’t want to take any chances on being stuck with a horrible flavour for a week, so I’m relying on the law of large numbers. I ordered a package of 60 different flavour samples to figure out the ones that work best for neutralising the chlorine taste. It seems as this turns out to be a quite adventurous undertaking – of course there are the regular flavours like strawberry and lemon, but also quite unexpected ones like coconut, almond or – most interesting – anti hangover.

A full research report on flavours that best complement chlorine taste will be published soon.