The water leaving a Chinese treatment plant is usually treated to a reasonable standard. The problem is what happens between there and your tap: ageing distribution pipes, rooftop storage tanks in older residential buildings, and building plumbing of unknown age. Nobody drinks it unboiled, including Chinese residents.
What people actually drink#
Boiled water. This is the national default and it is why you will find a boiling-water dispenser in every hotel corridor, on every train, in every railway station and airport, and in most office buildings. It costs nothing and it is safe.
Bring an insulated flask. Fill it in the morning, refill it at the station, and you will spend almost nothing on drinks for an entire trip. This is exactly what Chinese travellers do, and it is the single most practical habit to copy.
Bottled water costs ¥2–4 in any convenience store and is sold everywhere. Every hotel room provides two free bottles a day, replenished with the room.
Hot water as a drink in itself is normal. Asking a restaurant for 热水 (rè shuǐ, hot water) will get you a glass of plain boiled water, and nobody finds this strange. Cold water is the less standard request — many people drink water hot year-round, including in summer.
Is the ice safe?#
In mainstream restaurants, hotels, cafés and any chain, yes. Commercial ice in China is made from purified water and is not a meaningful risk.
At a street stall with a bucket of ice of unclear origin, apply the same judgement you would anywhere else.
What about brushing your teeth?#
Fine. The risk from tap water is ingestion in quantity, not incidental contact. Rinsing your mouth and showering are not a concern.
Filters and purifiers#
A travel filter bottle works and some people carry one, but it solves a problem that free boiling water has already solved. Unless you are heading into genuinely remote areas — parts of Tibet, western Sichuan, rural Xinjiang — the dispenser network makes a purifier redundant weight.
If you do get an upset stomach#
Most travellers who feel unwell in their first days in China are not reacting to water at all. Unfamiliar quantities of chilli, Sichuan peppercorn and cooking oil upset plenty of stomachs on their own. Carry loperamide and rehydration salts, and see our health and safety guide for when something warrants a doctor rather than a rest day.