Maybe I’m just nuts, but I buy two kinds of water: Zephyrhills Spring Water and Dasani. My wife prefers the Zephyrhills. Zephyrhills is spring water, Dasani is purified water. To me, Zephyrhills tastes the same as Dasani. BUT, when I drink a swig of Zephyrhills, I put the bottle down and I’m not really interested in drinking more. But when I drink the Dasani I always finish the bottle.
Does purified go down better than spring? Do they add something to Dasani to make it go down easier? Is there something about the shape of the bottle or the color of the label that makes me pscyhologically more favorable to Dasani?
Water tastes different based on the dissolved mineral profile as well as any other dissolved gasses and other stuff. The difference is subtle but unmistakable to a trained palate.
I remember telling my econ teacher in college that I could taste the difference between Tap, Dasani, Aquafina and Ice Mountain water and she didn’t believe me for a second. I assured her that I could, so she set up a taste test for me to do in front of the entire class.
I nailed it 4-4.
IMO Aquafina is the worst and has a distinct metallic aftertaste, whereas Dasani is the best because it’s the most pure and just tastes better.
Have someone else pour them into two different cups without you or your wife watching, then do a taste test to see if either of you can tell which is which.
Distilled water does not taste very good at all. The nice refreshing flavor we associate with a drink of water comes from the dissolved or suspended constituents.
I have the good luck to live in a city with very good tapwater, and It is not a burden at all for me to drink a half a gallon a day, even more in summer. Yet, almost everyone I know buys bottled water – the cheapest store brand.
There’s also the difference in the bottles. The Costco we normally buy has very thin plastic and a shallow cap. I’d left a larger cap. A smaller case from Trader Joe’s we just got had a “sport” cap with a flip lid and a squirty nozzle thing; I hate it.
A bit off topic but I recall Sparkletts water had an aftertaste that I can’t quite put my finger on. My young mind associated it with chlorine, though of course that’s not it. I always liked it but there was definitely something I was catching a taste of. Anyone else notice that? It also gave me a head rush, though I’m thinking that was more due to it being cold.
Both Aquafina and Dasani are tap water put through a reverse osmosis filter. I know the locations of the bottling plants around here and they get their water from the same source.
[ul]
[li]Distilled. Cheapest bulk store brands, mostly. Flat taste most people don’t care for.[/li][li]Natural groundwater. Typically filtered and purified but has whatever mineral content you’d get from swiping up a cup from the lake, river or well.[/li][li]Reconstituted mineralized. Most brand-name waters and many generics add a trace of natural minerals back into the water to give it a more pleasing taste. The mix is what determines the flavor and distinguishes, say, Dasani from Aquafina.[/li][/ul]
But water is still water and the carbon footprint expended by shipping it around the globe should be as shameful as driving a coal roller.
