cedar water

English

Noun

cedar water (uncountable)

1. Water stained deep brown by tannins and iron, particularly that found in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
   • 1916, John William Harshberger, The Vegetation of the New Jersey Pine-barrens: An Ecologic Investigation, page 21:

     Some one discovered that cedar-water kept sweet and potable longer than ordinary river-water.

   • 1967, John McPhee, The Pine Barrens, page 16:

     The characteristic color of the water in the streams is the color of tea—a phenomenon, often called “cedar water,” that is familiar in the Adirondacks, as in many other places where tannins and other organic waste from riparian cedar trees combine with iron from the ground water to give the rivers a deep color. […] Sea captains once took the cedar water of the Pine Barrens rivers with them on long voyages, because cedar water would remain sweet and potable longer than any other water they could find.

   • 2000, F. Paul Wilson, “The Barrens”, in The Barrens and Others, page 224:

     And this is cedar water. It gets brown from the iron deposits and from the cedars but it’s as pure as it comes.