I read a lot of reviews (after the fact) and some people reported the taste issue, but definitely a minority. You may not have any problem at all.

I eliminated other possibilities. I used water that was filtered already through the filter on my kitchen tap, tasted the water before and after filtering, etc., and compared it to water filtered with my PUR Hiker. I may have given up too soon, since it's possible washing or soaking would have corrected it.

It could be that it was residue of some kind of sanitizing solution used during manufacture. Possibly the occasional filter gets a bigger dose of it and needs more time to disperse it.