Bottled Water: Is it worth it?

[vhilts]

Questions:

what's your favorite bottled water?

is it worth it?

Mine:

Volvic

Fiji

definitely worth it and can definitely tell the difference in taste over tap.

[joiei]

I can tell you one that I do not like - Evian. To me it tastes dull and flat, it has no life to it and is off tasting on the tongue. Fiji tastes much more refreshing.

Yes, different bottled waters do taste different.

[bilrus]

Fiji is my favorite.

And I like Voss, but am a little put off by the pretension involved.

And I don't find anything wrong with Dasani and Aquafina too. They taste like water should taste like.

[TMus1111]

Appalachian - in my mind it tastes different (and better) and I think the fact that it comes in a crystal clear plastic bottle instead of a cloudy one helps with this theory.

[inespm]

I like fiji... this is a good bottled water web site: http://finewaters.com/Bottled_Water/Index.asp

[marinade]

Penn and Teller did a series for Showtime called "Bullshit!".It was a13-month series which took on and debunked things like fang shun, pet psychics, alien abductions, penis enlargements, some social trends etc… One of the episodes dealt with Bottled Water. In it they had a “Water Sommelier” in a restaurant he presented to a group of patrons a “Specialty Water List” and arranged for a tasting. Nice looking labels on different bottles all being filled out side from same tap faucet with the same garden hose. Patrons claimed they could taste some differences. It’s available on DVD.

Edited July 20, 2005 by marinade (log)

[Pan]

I like to get mineral water in Europe, because it's part of the experience and I like reading the labels showing the amounts of all the different ions. Plus, some places have bad-tasting tap water. In France, I found Volvic really cheap and pretty uninteresting and preferred Vittel, among others. Probably the most interesting mineral water I've had was a naturally lightly carbonated one from the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, which was available in Campagna. I also recall liking a mineral water from Nocera Umbra in Umbria.

In New York, I almost never purchase bottled water, and no, I don't think it's nearly worth the money compared with tap water (filtered or unfiltered). If I lived in Santa Barbara, where the artesian well water tastes horrendous, I'd undoubtedly live on bottled water.

Edited July 20, 2005 by Pan (log)

[NulloModo]

Most bottled waters taste pretty much the same to me. Back to back I can tell the difference from tap water, but I have no problem drinking tap water in general. In fact, I've sort of become accustomed to the mineraly slightly cloudy tap water that comes out of my school's water fountains...

When I do go for bottled I like Dasani a lot, though it might be because the bottle has a cool texture... Then again, the folks at Coke who bottle it apparently add some minerals and whatnot back in before bottling, so maybe that is why I like it.

[Laksa]

Penn and Teller did a series for Showtime called "Bullshit!".It was a13-month series which took on and debunked things like fang shun, pet psychics, alien abductions, penis enlargements, some social trends etc… One of the episodes dealt with Bottled Water. In it they had a “Water Sommelier” in a restaurant he presented to a group of patrons a “Specialty Water List” and arranged for a tasting. Nice looking labels on different bottles all being filled out side from same tap faucet with the same garden hose. Patrons claimed they could taste some differences. It’s available on DVD.

←

All that proves is that the group of patrons were very poor at discerning differences, or lack of it in the water they were tasting.

A better test would be to offer the patrons a sufficiently large number of two-drink-comparison tests, and in half of the tests the two glasses are filled with the same type of water, and in the other half, different, e.g. tap water and bottled water. Ask the tasters to indicate if the two drinks are the same or different. But I could see how that's not really Penn and Teller's gig.

Edited to add:

And that's not likely to sell too many DVDs.

Edited July 20, 2005 by Laksa (log)

[phaelon56]

In general I notice a difference between bottled waters that are simply purified and filtered water from a municipal source and those that are actually bottled spring water. For me the exception among plain old filtered water is Aquafina - it tastes so flat that I can tolerate it only if I'm truly parched. Dasani and the others taste about the same to me.

I've tried many bottled spring waters - some taste flat enough due to low mineral content that they really don't seem to vary in taste at all from filter and purified municupal water but a few brands I've tried like Ozark, Deer Park and Poland Spring seem to be a bit tastier.

The municipal water I've been drinking for most of my life comes fro one of the Finger Lakes - Skaneatles. It is very very clean even before filtering and has a good balance of minerals. My GF lives a bit further out of the city and gets water from the Lake Ontario pipeline - there's a noticeable difference in taste (it's not as good).

If you asked me to distinguish one brand from another in a taste test I'd find it difficult if not impossible. But in many cases I think I could guess which ones were good bottled spring water and which were just filter municipal water or plain old tap water. And if you get the water cold enough with a bunch of ice cubes it's really difficult to tell the difference.

Ask anyone who brews beer or does professional coffee brewing or espresso production - water quality makes a huge difference. But with right reverse and a system that adds certain mineral levels back into the water you can make great tasting filtered water from darn near any source.

[mizducky]

I've never really found all that much difference in taste in commonly-available bottled waters. The tapwater I run through my Brita filter is quite tasty enough that I just don't bother with bottled water at home; and away from home, bottled water is more a convenience than anything else (I dehydrate in something like 30 seconds flat in the July SoCal sun). In fact, I've been known to fill empty bought-water bottles from my kitchen tap and take them with me on car trips around town.

Yeah, if I were making beer or something, I'd definitely get a lot more achtung about the water involved. But otherwise ... nah. It's wet, I drink it.

Edited July 20, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

I get mine straight out of the tap. I even flush my toilets with it.

[Jensen]

I like Gerolsteiner but also recently had some Apollinaris and liked that. I tried some Calistoga mineral water but found it far too salty.

I will buy mineral water but won't buy plain water to drink at home. If I'm going to be out all day or for a weekend (such as out dog racing), then I will drink bottled water. Also, after suffering the ill effects of ghiardia thanks to some icky rest area water in Arizona, I now buy cases of water to take on road trips with me.

At home, the water is either straight out of the tap or run through the fridge filter.

[Pam R]

A couple of years ago they found nasty things in the tap water here. Plus, I don't like the taste of my tap water. Since then I've had a water cooler.

I don't really have a favorite bottled water, but I dislike a few of them.

If I lived in a place with great tap water (somewhere like Hinton Alberta where is comes right from Glacier runoff) I would drink tap water.

Am I the only one who lives somewhere with not so fabulous tap water?

[BCinBC]

As many people have pointed out, tap water is completely dependent on many factors including source, disinfection method, distance from source, etc. In Vancouver we are very fortunate to have three mountain watersheds that are protected from human traffic. The resulting tap water, after running through a Brita, is IMO much better tasting than bottled water. It is fresh (bottled water loses dissolved oxygen over time) and the Brita removes the chlorine residual. Of course if you're at the end of the distribution system (which I'm not), then you might be getting relatively stale water and it will taste different.

By trade I am a water treatment engineer, and I've always been pretty leery of "bottled spring water" or similar. The truth is, if someone is taking shallow well water, ozonating it, bottling it, then shipping it hundreds or thousands of miles to you... Well, it's not necessarily better than what you get out of your tap. For example, bacteria can grow back in the time between. I'm not saying all bottled water is bad, but just use common sense.

[Thesorus]

my 2 liters ( as opposed to my 2 cents )

I don't usually buy bottled water for everyday use, tap water in montréal is good enough ( with and without brita filters ); but I will buy some if I'm going somewhere where the only water available is form a public fountain.

i buy Evian.

[fiftydollars]

I buy Pellegrino because if I'm going to pay a $1 for a bottle of water it might as well be Italian and carbonated.

[peppyre]

At work we have a cooler with Canadian Springs and since I work in a hospital that's an old not well made building, I don't trust the pipes that's what I drink. At home I drink tap run through a Pur filtre and Pelligrino or Perrier.

Pam, I agree that the water in Winnipeg is horrendous. It gets much much worse up north where everyone is on a well. It actually smells of sulfur. I remember the first time I ever had a glass of water in Rorketon back in the 80's and it came out of the tap looking like milk. It never did clear and I did have one sip and decided that I would rather dehydrate than drink that stuff.

[SuzySushi]

The tap water in my area is pretty high quality, so I usually drink that (mostly filtered through my new refrigerator).

Bottled waters, the only two I've found that I really like the taste of are Volvic and Ramlosa. Haven't tried Fiji yet.

[Grub]

Penn & Teller's Bullshit is excellent, for the most part. Their episode on bottled water (and Feng Shui) certainly was. No one likes to be told that they are wrong about something they believe in of course, so it hardly matters that someone exposes the bottled water industry as bogus -- it will still thrive.

But the truth is, packaging matters. I mean, the appearance and presentation of food is every bit as important as the taste -- we, as food enthusiasts should know that. If you take the same meal and present it a) in some very elegant, beautiful and artistic way; and b) as a TV dinner (and you don't tell people that they are the same), the vast majority will prefer the former. Well, if the same water is presented in an artistic, beautiful and elegant bottle, with nice piccies of Fiji and glaciers, it's gonna appeal to people WAY more than a crummy water faucet, right?

The "Water Sommelier" skit was hillarious. I loved watching him laughing his ass off, filling up bottles on the back porch from a hose. The customers were clearly influenced by the presentation -- I mean, it's like a placebo effect...

Edit: me no spel so gud.

Edited July 21, 2005 by Grub (log)

[rooftop1000]

We have our own well at home and its really tasty and cold...but out I guess I choose Poland Spring. I had a coworker that got tummy trouble from FIJI and I get it from the Icelandic bottled water ...and theyre tap water also......look at the magnesium content on those 2

T

[Shalmanese]

Penn and Teller did a series for Showtime called "Bullshit!".It was a13-month series which took on and debunked things like fang shun, pet psychics, alien abductions, penis enlargements, some social trends etc… One of the episodes dealt with Bottled Water. In it they had a “Water Sommelier” in a restaurant he presented to a group of patrons a “Specialty Water List” and arranged for a tasting. Nice looking labels on different bottles all being filled out side from same tap faucet with the same garden hose. Patrons claimed they could taste some differences. It’s available on DVD.

←

I had a lot of issues with that P&T episode. First of all, the only two places they bothered to survey were New York and San Francisco, two places reputed to have some of the best water in the country. In fact, many people claim the quality of NY Bagels and San Francisco sourdough is due to the qualities of the water there. And secondly, people can be easily fooled if can convince them to be. There are hundreds of fine dining restaurants which serve crap food yet have people raving about them because they're convinced based on the setting that the food must be good. That doesn't mean the entire notion of fine dining is false.

Water quality varies from place to place and rather noticably. The tap water in Melbourne is absolutely fantastic, so good that it's bottled as Mountain Springs water which is about the most popular bottled water in Australia. At the other end of the spectrum, the tap water we had in Perth was absolutely abysmal and reeking in sulfur, completely undrinkable.

When we travelled around europe, we drank tap water exclusively and there was also a marked difference in quality. Rome water was noticably superior.

If you live in a place with fabulous tap water, then by all means exploit it. But if you live somewhere where the water quality is poor or inconsistant, then bottled water is a safe way to go. It may not taste amazing but it's almost guarenteed to be drinkable. And even if you have amazing water, sometimes you might be in the mood for something different.

[Laksa]

No one likes to be told that they are wrong about something they believe in of course, so it hardly matters that someone exposes the bottled water industry as bogus -- it will still thrive.

←

An unscientific test is enough to expose the bottled water industry as bogus? If only everything in life were so easy.

[phaelon56]

Am I the only one who lives somewhere with not so fabulous tap water?

When I moved to North Jersey from Syracuse NY (center of the state) I discovered what bad tap water was all about. IN Syracuse all I'd ever drunk was straight tap water. The stuff in jersey was truly undrinkable but I got tired of lugging 2.5 gallon jugs of Poland Spring up four flights of stairs and invested ina pitcher with a Britta filter. Now that I'm living back in Syracuse I find the Britta to improve even the Syracuse water which already tastes pretty darn good by itself.

Mineral water is a whole different ball of wax. I love the high mineral content of Gerolsteiner but can only drink limited amounts.

[joiei]

If you have never encountered truly undrinkable tap water, I can suggest spending some time on the beaches of northwest Florida. The sulfer and iron content are so bad that you will be glad to have bottled water available. I have lived in places with great tap water, but when in the car, while hiking or riding a bike, that bottle of water is nice to have.