Mark Twain once said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over,” and these days there is indeed a cottage industry waging war over supplying the world with the freshest, cleanest drinking water. The life-essential fluid has become a $35 billion industry worldwide with water companies vying for consumer’s cash. These days, consumers can purchase water from every corner of the Earth, purporting to be better, cleaner and safer than the stuff that comes out of the tap. According to bottledwaterweb.com, a guide “to provide the consumer...with the most current accurate information about bottled water,” the difference between what people drink out of the tap as opposed to the bottled source is huge. Tap water is supposedly full of toxic dump spillage and a high amount of copper that causes severe headaches, diarrhea and, even cancer. No wonder the bottled water business has gotten richer. But is it really true that bottled water is safer? Is the free water we use to cook, to clean, to drink really terrible for us and is drinking bottled artesian water the solution to our health problems?
We decided to conduct our own (unscientific) test to find out. Tablet bought various brands of bottled water, caught some tap water in a glass and searched for victims. And who are better victims than our own staff? So we asked a few of our staff members to taste each water to see if there is a notable difference between branded water and the water we get for free. Does water taste just like, well, water?
The brands we choose for this taste test were Dasani, produced by Coca Cola; Aquafina, created by Pepsi; and Airwater, manufactured by Talking Rain and claiming to have “100% pure oxygen added.” (This is a rather odd claim, since water is, by its very definition one third oxygen.) The tap water was taken from Belltown in Seattle.
The test subjects were asked to rate and describe the taste of each water as well as pick the best tasting of the bunch. Obviously, they were blindfolded for strict assurance of impartiality—not that any of our staff members work for Pepsi, but still.... We lay no claim to be scientifically accurate; we merely wanted to see if there was a difference in taste between what people plunk hard-earned cash for and what we get for free from our own city’s water reservoir.
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