Bottled Water

Does anyone else remember the first time that they heard of bottled water? As a kid, water was like air. It was free. Actually, it is more fundamental than that. You don’t think of air being free, or costing money. It just…is. It is like a presupposition. You don’t question it. And water was like that to me. Of course, as a 7 year old asking for a cup of water at a restaurant, I didn’t think about the overhead costs of the cup, lid, straw, electricity to power the lights so I could see the cup, cost of plumbing to carry the water, cost of the sink…I just wanted a little water.I was incredulous when I first started seeing bottled water in restaurants and gas stations. “Dad, are they really charging money for water?” 

“Yes, but it is only if you get it in a bottle. If you ask for it in a cup, they don’t charge you for that." 

“Really? That is so weird.” 

That was too much for my young mind to grasp, so I asked for my water, “In a cup, please.” 

A few weeks ago, Gracie and I took a trip to Texas to move a friend to Huntsville. While we were their, we stopped by Dallas to visit some old friends of mine. We went to a place called Central Market, which is similar to a “Whole Foods” store (a chain of health food mega-stores.) Walking into the store, I stared in awe at shelf after shelf of bottled water. Bottled in interesting shaped, brightly colored containers, they came from all corners of the world. Some sparkling, some “still” (which I guess means, “not sparkling”) 

HILDON natural spring water from Broughton, Hampshire, England: AN ENGLISH NATURAL MINERAL WATER OF EXCEPTIONAL TASTE, DELIGHTFULLY STILL. 

SOLARES still natural mineral water. Producto de Espana. El agua que solo sabe a agua, tan pura como mana de la Naturaleza. (Which I will attempt to translate: “The water that only knows to water, so pure like the manner of the Nature.” Which might mean something really cool to people in Spain.) 

TyNant from Bethania, Wales. This one was cool because “Bethania” is kind of like the middle name of my niece and the name of my sister-in-law, Bethany. Also, the bottle was shaped like an irregular rock with a plastic cap screwed onto the end. 

MANIVA natural mineral water from the Italian Alps, which went so far as to list the temperature of the water at the source, and the electrical conductivity at 20 degrees Celsius. 

I started wondering. Is there really an ounce of noticeable difference in the taste of all these fascinatingly shaped waters? So I bought 6 of the most interesting ones, and conducted a taste test over the course of the next week or so. I carefully selecting a bottle, twisted off the cap, tipped the water to my mouth, and savored the liquid as I swished it meditatively around my mouth, trying to distinguish the subtly nuanced flavors of that particular water. What I found each time, not really very surprisingly, was that it tasted just like water. Actually what it tasted like was “money.” Because each of these water-flavored beverages cost well over $1.00 a bottle! 

None of these waters tasted any better than the water that could be found next to our Maple sugar house in northern New York State. After splitting wood for an hour, there was nothing, nothing! so refreshing as crawling down the bank, lifting the lid off the covered artesian well, and watching the crystal clear water bubble up through the sand about a foot and a half under the surface. I loved to stick my hand down into the skin-numbing coldness, and down into the bubbling sand. The water, when dipped into a cup, and raised to the lips, could not be chugged down, it had to be sipped because the water was intensely cold. It was delightfully refreshing, tasting just precisely like water should taste. 

And it was free.