What water to use in a La Pavoni

What the manuals say

The older US Europiccola manual says water is an important ingredient, and if your tap water tastes of chlorine, switch to bottled water. We could not find a water hardness specification from La Pavoni.

Hard water and scale

Hard water leaves scale on the element and in the group, which slows heat-up and weakens steam. Kanen Coffee ties its descaling interval to water: every 6 months with filtered water, every 3 months without. One long-time owner on Home-Barista says he uses only filtered water, regularly empties the machine, and has never had to descale.

Distilled water: a real disagreement

Owners on Home-Barista disagree, and we are not going to pretend otherwise:

• One experienced contributor says distilled or RO water leaches more metal than water with minerals, and that some minerals are needed for good extraction.
• Another, writing about a rusty Europiccola boiler, says distilled water is preferable from a corrosion standpoint, and that water for copper boilers should be near neutral pH with little chloride.

A practical middle ground: filtered tap water that tastes clean, or a bottled water that is not very hard.

Empty it now and then

The long-time owner quoted above regularly empties the machine rather than topping it up. It keeps the water fresh and lets you see what is collecting in the boiler.