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The chlorine taste or smell is something that is very subjective and can change for other reasons as well. I.e. if you are a tourist that is not used to chlori

The chlorine taste or smell is something that is very subjective and can change for other reasons as well. I.e. if you are a tourist that is not used to chlorinated water at all, even mildly chlorinated water can smell distinctly. And disgusting. Get used to it and it's like many things you get used to: you don't notice or mind it much any longer. But even then you might go take a shower and out comes a huge chlorine stink that subsides after a bit. For all you care water with chlorine smell would probably be the safest (from a microbial perspective - same caveats as you are mentioning about general guideline vs specific edge cases)

mywittyname 5y ago
But, getting back to the OP's point: water treatment in the USA varies dramatically between municipalities. Some use Chlorine, but others use different processes, be it chemical or filtration, to clean water. Older water infrastructure can't support chloramine, a replacement for chlorine, because it causes water to leech metals used in pipes. So older infrastructure in poor neighborhoods still use chlorine, but older, wealthy places might use nice filters and no chemicals. It varies a lot, even with houses separated by a few miles.